toasted pecan-Caramel shortbread cookies
A few weeks ago I saw an email from Bon Appétit in my inbox with the subject line “The Best Shortbread Cookies You’ve Ever Had.” Since no shortbread has ever held a candle to my Scottish mother-in-law’s, I skeptically opened the email. There I saw the recipe in question was titled Roasty Toasty Pecan-Caramel Shortbread Cookies. OK, now they had my attention. I read on. These slice & bake cookies were made in a food processor and the caramel in the title was actually dulce de leche. Interesting. I printed the recipe and got right to work.
My changes out of the gate: replace the dulce de leche with Cara-Sel and roll the dough log in pecans, rather than nonpareils. The resulting cookies were delicious, but spread a lot during baking. I also found the process of coating the dough in nuts to be messy and fiddly. Still, I saw so much potential that I tried again a few days later.
The next changes I made were to incorporate the outside nuts right into the cookie to eliminate the step of trying to coat the log and to move to a creaming method (I had found the food processor to be a near disaster, with the contents so sticky that I worried for the health of my machine). I also rolled the dough into a longer log, as I wanted smaller cookies, and sprinkled them with flaky salt before baking. These cookies were also delicious, but still spread a lot during baking. I was so close! I had an idea for how to fix this issue and didn’t wait too long to try again.
Version 3.0: I thought that because my caramel contains butter (unlike dulce de leche) perhaps I should decrease the butter in the recipe accordingly. So I made the recipe with ¼ cup less butter, leaving everything else the same as the previous trial. NAILED IT.
I am happy to now share this simplified recipe that has a lovely caramel flavor while only using a ¼ cup of Cara-Sel (that’s 2oz/a party favor size jar). Yay!
Toasted Pecan Cara-Sel Shortbread
ingredients
~1 cup (100g) toasted pecans
1 ½ cups + 2 Tbs (188g) all-purpose flour
½ tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher salt (less if Morton’s)
1 + ½ sticks (¾ cup) unsalted butter, softened
3 Tbs sugar
¼ cup (2oz) Cara-Sel caramel, room temp
flaky salt (optional)
- Chop pecans as fine or rough as you desire and combine with flour and salt in a small bowl.
- Using a stand mixer or large bowl + handheld mixer, cream butter, sugar, and caramel until well combined.
- Add dry ingredients and mix until well combined.
- Transfer dough from bowl to a large sheet of plastic wrap or parchment paper. Use your hands to smoosh it into a long (~12”-13”) log-like shape - it won’t be perfect yet - you just want to make it as even as possible. Wash your hands and then fold the wrap up and over the dough and use it to press and roll the dough into a nice round log. Roll up tightly and chill for 90 minutes, or freeze for 20 (I find laying it on a sheet pan will help it keep its shape).
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Transfer fully chilled log to cutting board and slice into rounds (I found mine to be between ¼” and ½”), rotating log about a quarter turn every few slices to help keep them round.
- Place dough discs on prepared baking sheets and freeze for 20 minutes. If you don’t have room in your freezer you can load up one sheet and separate them when it is time to bake.
- Preheat oven to 325º before you are ready to bake.
- Space cookies 1” apart and sprinkle with flaky salt (if using). Bake, rotating baking sheets top to bottom and front to back halfway through, until golden brown around the edges, 20-24 minutes. Let cookies set up slightly on baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely (cookies will firm up and get crisper as they cool).
* DO AHEAD: Make the dough log and freeze it, well wrapped, until a craving strikes. Your future self will thank you. ;-)