Alpha Bakers: Dutch Pecan Sandies

I am not a big fan of cookies, especially the roll cookies. They are just high maintenance, in my opinion. There's so much to do, you roll it out, cut it, move it to the baking pan, then if the dough gets too soft, it needs to be refrigerated before it can be roll out again. To me, the cookies have to be really good for me to go through all the steps. So when I saw this on the schedule, I was not very excited about this. Until, I opened the Baking Bible to the recipe page and saw:

Beurre Noisette.

There. I'm sold. I'm making this. Half recipe.

It turns out these cookies are high maintenance. It is so soft and tend to want to roll to be too thin. However, I do love working with the dough as it is quite malleable and easy to combine. I have made sugar cookies several times and in comparison these cookies are easier to work with (though I can say I do not like having to freeze them, that takes more time). The cookie dough is so good and the smell of pecan, muscovado sugar, and beurre noisette together created a very intoxicating smell. And yes I never would have guessed I would use the word intoxicating in a sentence, much less in a baking post. And btw, I did use the wrong sugar, supposed to use brown sugar but I ended up grabbing muscovado.

As for the taste, they are really really good! I did not regret making them and would probably make them again, though it will be for cookie-loving friends as the folks I tried to share them with gave the cookies an odd stare. Perhaps it's because they are not pretty like the cookies you see in bakeries or even places like Panera. But these are so good - I exclaimed. Somehow most of them were not convinced. Oh well, more for me. I still have a few in an airtight container and even hubby, who is vegan, has eaten a few.

Step by step photos:

Butter.

Yes I am drinking coffee and knitting while watching the butter turn into beurre noisette. This is called multi-tasking, otherwise known as "Jenn needs to be entertain otherwise she will walk away from the butter and said butter will burn." This whole process took 18 minutes so I was pleasantly entertained in that time :).

Strained beurre noisette. I got quite a bit of browned milk solids.

After a good resting period, soft malleable goodness.

Add it to the pecan and brown sugar.

Flour.

It does look like buttercream.

Add flour.

Coarse mixture.

I used a pyrex bowl instead of plastic wrap to "store" it.

I made mickey mouse. Did not intend too. I rolled half the dough and then realized I still have some space between the plastic wrap so I added 2 dough balls, and somehow made mickey mouse....

This dough is soft but in a good way because it's malleable and I was able to flip them together after I accidentally roll them too thin.

Ready for a bit of power nap in the freezer.

Cookie mise-en-place.

Ready for the oven. I do not remember how long they were baked for, I think I added a few minutes to the baking time.

Yumm.

Close up.

Alpha Bakers is a group of bakers who are baking through The Baking Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum's latest cookbook. Come check out the rest of the group at Rose's Alpha Bakers.