Maple Sugar-Pecan Shortbread

Today I made some Maple Sugar-Pecan Shortbread cookies for my Valentine.  ♥

The recipe is based on one from the Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins book, The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook. Their brown sugar version is delicious! I have often made them for holiday treats to give to friends.

These cookies are made with maple sugar. The maple sugar that I have is not as fine as regular sugar; I processed it in a mini food processor before using it.

A food processor is essential for grinding the pecans with the flour. If you don’t have a food processor, you can order pecan meal at the King Arthur Flour website. (That is also the source for my maple sugar if you’re interested in using that instead of brown sugar.)

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Maple Sugar-Pecan Shortbread

(printable recipe)

(Adapted from a recipe in The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook)

About 50 cookies (easy to cut in half for a smaller batch)

~~~

2 cups flour (240 g.)

1 cup pecan pieces

Pinch salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

½ cup maple sugar (or ½ cup dark brown sugar)

~~~

1. Put the flour, pecans and salt in a food processor and process until you have a fine blend.

2. Beat the butter and sugar in a mixer it is light and creamy. This takes several minutes, and you’ll probably have to stop the mixer and scrape down the sides a few times.

3. Add the flour mixture to the butter and sugar and mix well.

4. Gather the dough into a ball. Divide it in half. Put each half on a large piece of wax paper and shape into logs. Wrap the logs in the wax paper and refrigerate at least 3 hours or overnight.

(Alternatively, you can shape the dough into two balls, wrap in wax paper and refrigerate. Then roll the dough out until it is about ¼ inch thick and cut it with cookie cutters. Gather up the scraps and reroll and cut more cookies.  I prefer slice and bake!)

5. Preheat the oven to 300˚.

6. Slice the dough into ¼ inch thick cookies. Place them on an ungreased cookie sheet. (I have always used insulated cookie sheets with this recipe. I don’t know if it makes any difference.)

7. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the cookies have lightly colored. (Insulated cookie sheets will increase the baking time a bit. My cookies needed 29 minutes.)

♥  Happy Valentine’s Day, Bob! ♥

~

Batch made December 22, 2010: