Butter Pecan Meltaways
Lovely, buttery, tender shortbread cookies, with lots of toasted pecan pieces, all rolled in a powdered sugar coating.
24 servings · Easy · 1h 20m
Ingredients
- 1 cup (130 g) confectioners'/icing sugar
- 1/2 cup (113 g) salted butter, at room temperature *see Note 1
- 2 1/2 Tbsp (33 g) granulated white sugar
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) water
- 1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) vanilla extract, or vanilla bean paste
- 1 cup (120 g) all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (113 ml) pecans, toasted, cooled and finely chopped
Instructions
- Toast pecans, cool completely, then finely chop. Set aside.
- In a large bowl with an electric mixer or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter with the sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes at medium speed. Add the water and vanilla and mix in. Add the flour all at once and mix on low speed until the mixture comes together as a moist dough. Stir in the (cooled) finely chopped nuts.
- Using a cookie scoop or a tablespoon measuring spoon, scoop a portion and dough and roll into about 1-inch balls. Continue shaping balls with the remain dough, placing onto a baking sheet. (*I like to roll all the dough and pack then onto a smaller baking sheet that will fit nicely into my fridge. When ready to bake, I transfer them to another baking sheet, spacing them apart and baking in a couple of batches).
- Before refrigerating, you can flatten the balls slightly to make more of a "button-shaped" cookie or leave them as balls, if you prefer.
- Place baking sheet into the fridge uncovered and chill 15-30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325F.
- Bake in preheated oven, with balls spaced about 2 inches part, for about 20 minutes. Bake in batches, if necessary, leaving remaining dough in the refrigerator while you bake the first batch.
- Remove from oven and let stand about 1 minutes. Roll warm cookies in icing/confectioners' sugar while still very warm and place onto a wire rack to cool further. Once cooled to just slightly warm, roll again in powdered sugar to thoroughly coat.
- Allow to cool completely, then transfer to an airtight container. Store at room temperature for up to 2 weeks or freeze for up to 3 months.
Tags: pepperplate-import