So the first recipe had been interesting in execution, but the results a little disappointing. I plan to try them again and tinker with the cooking next time, but for the next round I decided to pick a cookie I was familiar with only in its commercial form, but really like. Sandies.
As it turns out Allrecipes.com has the exact same recipe there: Sandies
So we were back to the usual cookie start, cream butter and sugar. Easy. Add in some vanilla and water. I haven’t seen too many recipes that add water, interesting. Next the flour and the nuts, but I had a problem.
I had some pecans, but they were whole, so I had to chop them up first. So I got out a cutting board and my favorite sharp knife - oh boy was that a mistake. Because they’re hard, the nuts tend to jump around when you cut and it was just plain time consuming. Chop chop chop and repeated scooping and eventually I had a cups worth. But it took a while.
Now when I added in the flour and nuts to the butter/sugar mixture, it took some patience and for the first time in my use of it, my mixer definitely had to work hard to get it all combined. It was a stiff dough.
Once it had completely mixed, I covered the mixing bowl and moved it to the fridge for the 4 hours of cooling that was recommended. Then I was in for a shock.
The recipe recommended forming the dough into balls or ‘fingers,’ whatever that means. As it turns out the book has a picture of the ‘finger’ style at the beginning of the cookies and cakes chapter. I decided I’d do balls, so I casually got out a small spoon and went to dig out a scoop and “clunk!” This big lump of dough felt like a rock!!
There was no way I was getting dough off of this with the spoon without concerted effort. So I reached for a sharp knife and started slicing into the heap of hardened dough. Not only was this still difficult, but once I had secured a piece that was the right size to roll into a ball, that was hard to do too. I really had to apply a lot of pressure to get spheres.
So forming the cookies was harder work than expected, but I worked my way through it. They bake in a cooler oven than usual for longer, so it gave me a bit more time between sheets. The neat thing was the cookies didn’t change in shape much when they baked. So I was basically getting slightly distorted spheres out of the other end of the process.
Then the final step, again something I had not done with cookies I’d made before, after they were slightly cooled, you were to roll them in some powdered sugar, this was just plain messy since I did it by hand and again, time consuming.
As it turns out Allrecipes.com has the exact same recipe there: Sandies
So we were back to the usual cookie start, cream butter and sugar. Easy. Add in some vanilla and water. I haven’t seen too many recipes that add water, interesting. Next the flour and the nuts, but I had a problem.
I had some pecans, but they were whole, so I had to chop them up first. So I got out a cutting board and my favorite sharp knife - oh boy was that a mistake. Because they’re hard, the nuts tend to jump around when you cut and it was just plain time consuming. Chop chop chop and repeated scooping and eventually I had a cups worth. But it took a while.
Now when I added in the flour and nuts to the butter/sugar mixture, it took some patience and for the first time in my use of it, my mixer definitely had to work hard to get it all combined. It was a stiff dough.
Once it had completely mixed, I covered the mixing bowl and moved it to the fridge for the 4 hours of cooling that was recommended. Then I was in for a shock.
The recipe recommended forming the dough into balls or ‘fingers,’ whatever that means. As it turns out the book has a picture of the ‘finger’ style at the beginning of the cookies and cakes chapter. I decided I’d do balls, so I casually got out a small spoon and went to dig out a scoop and “clunk!” This big lump of dough felt like a rock!!
There was no way I was getting dough off of this with the spoon without concerted effort. So I reached for a sharp knife and started slicing into the heap of hardened dough. Not only was this still difficult, but once I had secured a piece that was the right size to roll into a ball, that was hard to do too. I really had to apply a lot of pressure to get spheres.
So forming the cookies was harder work than expected, but I worked my way through it. They bake in a cooler oven than usual for longer, so it gave me a bit more time between sheets. The neat thing was the cookies didn’t change in shape much when they baked. So I was basically getting slightly distorted spheres out of the other end of the process.
Then the final step, again something I had not done with cookies I’d made before, after they were slightly cooled, you were to roll them in some powdered sugar, this was just plain messy since I did it by hand and again, time consuming.
I let them cool completely and gave them a try, and oh they were very good. Had the wonderful shortbread/pecan flavor combination I liked from the commercial variety, but better. And the cookie was much more tender than the hard commercial version which is probably adjusted to ship without much crumbling.
I brought these in to work to great reviews. If you like Sandies at all, you’ll really like these. A bit of effort but a very nice end product.
Lessons Learned:
Buy chopped pecans or use the food processor. Chopping whole pecans by hand is a pain.
Be ready for some hard work for your hands forming the cookies.
Try the ‘finger’ shape next time.
Try coating the cookies using a bag with powdered sugar in it next time.
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