Pecan Cookies

grantg

<br />JUST A LITTLE PECAN COOKIE <br />(This is well worth trying &amp; you will love it, especially if you like pecan pie and similar tastes.)<br />Make this ONE STAR recipe into a FIVE STAR memorable holiday cookie that I have remembered for over 70 years!!! In the 1950s and for many years after, our neighbor Mrs. Ruth B made holiday cookies for neighbors at Christmas time... one cookie of each variety per member of the families receiving the gift assortment. ONE cookie in the assortment was often a tempting cause of strife because everyone wanted another "Pecan Cookie" aka "brown sugar cookie" or "molasses cookie." So many times my mother asked for the recipe, after I moved away I also asked for the recipe. The answer was always "NO" because Mrs. B never shared any of her recipes beyond her own "family." Dozens of recipes were tried over the years searching for the elusive addictive "just a little pecan cookie" until the day this recipe was shared on Sara Moulton's show! My back was to the TV as I worked on the computer, but I was listening and realized THIS was the key to reviving the cookie Mrs. B would not share! I made the recipe and was disappointed by the flat unappealing sticky cookie that tasted ALMOST right. After I was grown and visiting one Christmas I had asked one last time for the recipe... the response was still "NO" but a final clue shortly before Mrs. B passed away: "the cookie was a recipe that I had made a mistake when I made it." OK now we turn this into a five star cookie! "Brown sugar, molasses, and a mistake" with the TASTE, texture, and look long searched for and found 34 years later. Use all ingredients listed, PLUS add 1/4 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon molasses (to preferred taste), plus a whole pecan half to top each cookie. The mistake... use self-rising flour instead of cake flour. Also pulse or chop pecan pieces until a coarse meal or flour. After placing cookie dough onto parchment lined sheet pan, press a whole pecan half onto the top of the cookie, flattening it slightly... it will spread a little as it bakes, but not like this recipe as noted by some other reviews.<br />Sift the self-rising flour if you wish, but using SR flour unsifted works just as well. When I made and gave these to my mom in 1995, she looked in the box...shocked. Took one cookie out and closely examined it before finally taking a bite of the cookie, then my mom declared "Mrs. B's pecan cookie!" She looked like there was a ghost in the room because Mrs. B had passed many years earlier. My mom could not believe that after 34 years I had adapted a very similar tasting cookie into the "just a little pecan cookie" exactly in taste and texture!<br />A big belated THANK YOU to Betsy Chesson and Sara Moulton! Also to Mrs. Ruth B... and my own mom the first Christmas that I made these and gave her a box of them! Her reaction and look on her face as she said to me... "Mrs. B's cookie!" Trust me... easy to make, delicious, and memorable!