This week’s SMS was chosen by Lara of The Lab: pecan shortbread cookies. Or, as I like to call them, the cookies that would not look attractive in photos no matter how many times I tried 🙂 What they lacked in attractiveness, though, they more than made up for in ease of preparation. The entire recipe can seriously be made in a food processor in about 5 minutes and the ingredient list is short, with pecans, butter and flour serving as the major players.
I feel like I say this every week, but once again, I scaled the recipe way back. I bet I’d have to search my archives for quite a while to find an instance where I actually made the full SMS recipe. With only two of us here, it rarely makes sense. This week I made 1/4 of the recipe, which yielded 9 cookies. I probably could have whipped up the dough in my mini prep had I thought about it but I didn’t until I’d already dirtied the full size food processor. Though the recipe didn’t specifically instruct it, I pulsed the pecans in my food processor to chop them (instead of doing it by hand), then removed them to a bowl and proceeded with the rest of the recipe. Given the small quantity of nuts I needed for 1/4 of the recipe it wouldn’t have been a big deal to chop them by hand, but why dirty a knife and cutting board when I didn’t have to?
I’m not a huge fan of cookies with nuts (though I have had Mexican wedding cookies before which these reminded me of) and I’d rather save my calories for a different type of treat so I didn’t try the cookies. I gave them to my neighbor and she did tell me they were quite good though! I can comment on the texture – this type of cookies tends to be crumbly by nature but these were even more so than other similar recipes I’ve tried; the edges of a few of my cookies fell off when I rolled them in the confectioners’ sugar. These probably aren’t something I’d make again, unless they were specifically requested, but that doesn’t speak to the recipe so much as my lack of passion for cookies with nuts, even if they are pretty finely ground.
Many thanks to Lara for hosting this week! You can find the recipe on her blog or on page 84 of the Sweet Melissa Baking Book.
I did the same thing with the pecans. Pulsed them super fine with my processor as the majority of people I know hate nutty cookies.
It’s a shame you didn’t get to try them, they really were something else 🙂
Katie xox
I laughed at your comment about photographing these! This type of cookie is one of my favorites and I wasn’t impressed with the recipe either. Your cookies do look beautiful.
They sure look pretty. They were very fragile little puffs of a cookie. My husband took the entire thing and popped it into his moouth!
So pretty! 🙂 Mine weren’t so much! Happy Easter to you and yours, Tracey!
These look amazing!
I use the attachment to the immersion blender to chop the nuts. Chopping nuts is easy enough but it is time consuming.
I tend to scale the recipes back myself too for the same reason. Your cookies do look gorgeous despite the unwillingness of your subject to cooperate 😉
I had trouble with the photos on this one. I never could get the powdered sugar quite right!!
I loved this recipe. It’s one of my favorites so far!
Mmm…though you didn’t try the cookies, they still look amazing and adorable with the powdered sugar!
Agreed. These cookies were hard to photograph. Your top picture looks a lot like mine only much better 🙂
Quick and easy – I think I’ll have to try them (since I do love nuts). What a kind neighbor you are!
I think yours look great, Tracey! I didn’t know what they were supposed to look like since I took great liberties with the recipe. I also wondered why the recipe didn’t have you chop the pecans in the food processor, and I did it all in the FP.
I see I am not the only one who takes her photos on the deck. 🙂 I think the cookies look good.
Nice presentation!
Carmen
SMS Baker
Your cookies turned out terrific, what a nice treat for your neighbor! I made a half recipe of this one, but a quarter probably would have been more sensible, since I ended up making a lot of other treats this weekend and we got sent home with cookies from Easter today.
These are one of my favorite cookies. Oh, and your puff pastry looks fabulous!
Well I think that 2nd pic of the cookies looks fantastic. Shortbread with pecans and powdered sugar. Perfect!!!!
they look so pretty! Mine kind of flattened out and only now looking at everyone else’s pictures do I realise that they weren’t supposed to!! I agree – Super easy to make although I know what you mean about saving the calories for other treats! R x
Those look wonderful, and I am very certain these would be a big hit with Mark. I need to try these.
Your cookies look delicious!!! I love the blue bowl you used for the photograph!
Yum… I love all things with pecans, and shortbread is also a winner in my book!