recipe no. 7 · easy · thanksgiving favorite
Golden Pecan Tassies (Mini Pecan Pie Cookies)
Mini pecan pies with a 3-ingredient cream cheese crust and a gooey brown sugar pecan filling, straight from Sylvia's handwritten recipe card. No rolling pin needed: you press the dough into a mini muffin tin with your thumb, fill and bake 24 two-bite tassies for your Thanksgiving and Christmas cookie trays.
makes24
oven350°F, then 250°F
bake25 min
Ingredients
- ½ cup (1 stick)unsalted butter, softened (crust)
- 3 ozcream cheese, softened (crust)
- 1 cupall-purpose flour (crust)
- ½ cuppecans or walnuts, chopped (filling)
- 1egg (filling)
- ¾ cupbrown sugar (filling)
- dashsalt (filling)
- few dropsvanilla extract (filling)
Method
- Make the dough. Blend the softened butter and cream cheese until creamy, then add the flour and mix well.
- Shape the shells. Divide the dough into 24 balls and press each one into a mini muffin cup and up the sides with your thumb. Keep the bottoms and sides an even thickness so every tassie bakes at the same rate.
- Mix the filling. Combine the pecans or walnuts, egg, brown sugar, a dash of salt and a few drops of vanilla.
- Fill. Spoon the filling into the shells, just to the top of the crust. It puffs as it bakes and can bubble over if you overfill.
- Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes to set and brown the crust, then lower the oven to 250°F and bake 10 minutes more so the filling sets gently.
- Cool. Let the tassies cool in the pan about 10 minutes, then run a thin knife around each one and lift it out.
Adapted from Sylvia's original card, which calls for 1 bar of oleo, the old-fashioned name for margarine. I use unsalted butter for a richer crust, but a stick of margarine swaps 1:1. Pecans and walnuts are both right there on the card, so use whichever you love. Store airtight at room temperature up to 3 days, in the fridge up to a week, or freeze up to 3 months, which makes these an easy make-ahead Thanksgiving dessert.