The Easiest Chewy Pecan Pie Cookies You’ll Make This Season
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Pecan pie is a classic, old-fashioned dessert staple when it comes to the holiday season. In fact, is a Thanksgiving dinner spread really complete without a pecan pie for dessert? But the process of making this delicious holiday pecan dessert can be challenging for a beginner baker, especially when it comes to not burning it!
So this season, we’re switching up the classic pecan dessert recipe with this pecan pie cookie recipe. This quick and easy cookie recipe creates rich, moist, and most importantly, thick pecan cookies that have the perfect amount of sweet and salty taste in a cookie that you would think came directly from the bakery. We can almost guarantee that these chewy mini pecan pie cookies will be a huge hit with your entire family. They will be asking for them at Thanksgiving and Christmas for years to come!
Tricks to Keeping Your Cookies Thick
While this pecan cookie recipe can be very easy to make, it is important to follow these simple steps to ensure that your cookies do not flatten when you put them into the oven. Keeping the cookies as thick as possible allows the caramel to melt and stay inside the cookie (creating that chewy center everyone loves!) and not burn on the cookie sheet.
Don’t over mix the batter
Once you have combined all of the dough ingredients into the bowl, stop stirring! You want to maintain as much air in the dough as possible. Add all of your mix-ins and chunky ingredients and then mix the dough by hand or gently fold in with a wooden spoon. This is a great step for kids if you want to include them in the baking process.
Once everything is combined, the dough should be crumbly and easy to mold with your hands. If you cannot form balls easily, or it sticks to your hands while doing so, the dough is too soft and will not make the thick cookies that you are looking for.
Chill the dough before baking
Another way to ensure that you get the thick pecan pie cookies that you are looking for is to chill the dough before you bake it. In this case, we prefer to shape the cookies into the size we want before we chill the dough. That way when you pop the cookies into the oven, they are less likely to spread over the pan and maintain their shape.
In this case, since we are looking to keep the chunky texture, we allow the cookie dough to rest for 30 minutes before baking. To tell if the dough is ready and the fats have had time to solidify, make sure that the pecan cookie dough balls are firm to the touch before placing them in the oven.
If you have time, chill the dough overnight for even better results. While chilling the dough longer may not make your cookies thicker, it gives the ingredients more time to combine and can enhance the overall flavor of your cookie.
Why Should You Chill Cookie Dough?
By placing your dough in the fridge before baking, you allow the fats in the cookies—butter, in this case—to cool and solidifying. This means the cookies will be less likely to spread since the fat will take longer to melt in the oven.
Allowing your cookies to chill also gives the flour time to hydrate, soaking up any additional moisture, causing both thicker cookies and ones that bake much more evenly and help you achieve that desired golden brown color.
Don’t Place Your Cookie Dough on a Warm Tray
Making lots of cookies at the same time? Don’t be too quick in swapping out baking sheets from the oven. Placing dough (even chilled) on a warm cookie sheet before baking will cause the dough to start to melt around the edges. Not only could this change the texture of the cookie—and possibly flatten the cookie—but it will produce a pecan pie cookie that bakes unevenly. As the edges spread out, they are more likely to burn while your center stays too soft and under baked.
How to Make the Softest Cookies Ever
No one likes a dry cookie, even with added mix-ins, such as chocolate chips. While the above tips are to keep your cookies as thick as possible, you always make to make sure that these pecan pie cookies stay soft, even after they cool.
Cream the Butter & Sugar Properly
You saw above where we mentioned that you shouldn’t over mix the dough, but that doesn’t apply to the cream and sugar. To get a properly fluffy dough, creaming the sugar and butter together is an important step. By doing so, you don’t simply want to stir the butter and sugar until it has combined. Instead, use a stand mixer or hand mixer to whip the butter and sugar together. This adds much needed air into your mixture, which results in cookies that are less likely to spread and flatten while baking.
Take your time creaming the butter and sugar together. Under creamed butter and sugar will be wet and gritty. Stop when the mixture looks light and fluffy, as it is possible to cream the butter and sugar for too long.
Under bake the Cookies
Don’t want dry cookies? Take them out of the oven just before they are done.
Keep an eye on your cookies until you begin to see the edges of the cookies start to turn a golden brown. While the centers may not appear fully cooked, the cookies will continue to bake on the rack as they cool and firm up.
What You Need to Make Pecan Pie Cookies
Unsalted Butter
Eggs
Kosher Salt
How to Make Pecan Pie Cookies
Cream the butter. In large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add to the mixture. Add in eggs and vanilla extract. Mix until fully combined.
Combine the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, added sifted flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Add dry mixture to wet mixture slowly and combine, being careful to avoid over mixing.
Mix it with your hands. Add desired mix-ins and caramel bits slowly with wooden spoon or hands. Stop when combined fully.
Use parchment paper. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Make cookie dough balls. Separate dough into 12 large, fist-sized balls and drop onto cookie sheet. Mold slightly to maintain shape but avoid rolling.
Let it chill. Refrigerate cookie dough for 1-2 hours. Cover bowl of dough and chill overnight for even deeper flavor.
Time to bake. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake cookies for 18 minutes or until edges are golden brown.
Let the cookies cool. Remove cookies from oven and place on wire rack to cool. Sprinkle kosher salt on top before cooling.
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Pecan Pie Cookie Variations
Honestly, the combinations in this dough are pretty endless. Feel free to substitute your favorite mix-ins, such as white or dark chocolate chips or different nuts. Just remember that too many moist or meltable mix-ins could cause your dough to rise unevenly.
Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Add in dark chocolate chunks in lieu of the caramel bits for a sweet and crunchy variation.
Turtle Pecan Pie Cookie. Add in a combination of dark chocolate chunks, caramel bits, and pecans for the ultimate turtle cookie. This would be perfect underneath a big scoop of vanilla ice cream to create the perfect sundae! Modify this recipe by substituting a 1/2 cup of chocolate chunks and 1/2 cup of caramel bits.
Butterscotch Delights. Not a fan of caramel? Just substitute the caramel bits for butterscotch chips and swap the pecans for walnuts.
White Chocolate Macadamia. Another classic spin on this cookie dough. Give your dough a richer taste by using white chocolate chips and the ever popular, Macadamia nut.
Easy Pecan Pie Cookies (Thick and Chewy!)
Ingredients
Instructions
Nutrition Facts
Calories
486.89Fat
19.57Sat. Fat
10.13Carbs
74.87Fiber
1.61Net carbs
73.26Sugar
49.70Protein
5.23Sodium
333.34Cholesterol
71.67
