Salty-Sweet Butter Pecan Cookies
Salt and sugar go together like coffee and cream — each brings the other to new heights. These butterscotch cookies are heavily laced with toasted pecans and butterscotch chips. Love salty/sweet? They're rolled in a mixture of sugar and salt before baking, which gives them over-the-top flavor.
There are a few of options once you have the dough made. If you bake the cookies right away, you'll have a flatter, lighter-colored cookie. Refrigerate it for 4 to 5 hours, the cookies will be flat, but not "puddle-y." Chill overnight, and the dough dries out, with some of the starch in the flour turning to sugar. The cookies will be darker, more "caramel-y," and won't spread nearly as much.
Also, these cookies are a good candidate for the "tablespoon vs. teaspoon" scoop choice. A tablespoon cookie scoop (actually 4 level measuring teaspoons) will yield big, 3" cookies; a teaspoon scoop (1 3/4 level measuring teaspoons) will make smaller (2 1/4") cookies.
Read our blog about these cookies, with additional photos, at Bakers' Banter.
- 1 1/3 cups pecan halves
- 2/3 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3/4 teaspoon butterscotch, vanilla-butternut, or butter-rum flavor
- 1 teaspoon vinegar, cider or white
- 1 large egg
- 2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 1 1/3 cups butterscotch chips
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar mixed with 1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, for topping*
- *If you're making smaller (teaspoon cookie scoop-sized) cookies, increase the coating to 1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) granulated sugar mixed with 1 3/4 to 2 teaspoons salt.
Directions
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1) Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets. |
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2) Place the pecans in a single layer in a pan, and toast till they've darkened a bit and smell toasty, about 8 to 9 minutes. Set them aside. |
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3) In a large bowl, combine the sugars, butter, shortening, salt, espresso powder, baking soda, vanilla, flavor, and vinegar, beating until smooth and creamy. |
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4) Beat in the egg, again beating till smooth. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula to make sure everything is thoroughly combined. |
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5) Mix in the flour, then the chips and toasted nuts. |
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6) If you're going to refrigerate the dough, cover the bowl, and refrigerate for about 4 to 5 hours; or overnight. Cookie dough refrigerated for 3 1/2 to 4 hours will spread moderately; chilled overnight, it will spread much less. |
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7) Mix the 1/3 cup sugar and salt for the coating, and put it in a bowl. To bake cookies immediately (without refrigeration), use a spoon (or a tablespoon cookie scoop) to scoop 1 1/2" balls of dough into the sugar/salt mixture, rolling to coat. Then transfer to the prepared baking sheets, leaving 2" between them on all sides; they'll spread quite a bit. Or use a teaspoon cookie scoop to scoop 1 1/4" balls of dough. |
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8) Bake the cookies for 10 to 11 minutes — 11 minutes for smaller cookies, 12 for larger ones. Their edges will be chestnut brown and their tops a lighter golden brown. (For dough that's been refrigerated, add 30 seconds to 1 minute to those baking times.) Remove them from the oven, and cool on the pan till they've set enough to move without breaking. Repeat with the remaining dough. |
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Yield: about 4 dozen 3" cookies, or 7 dozen 2 1/4" cookies. |
Recipe summary
- Hands-on time:
- 18 mins. to 20 mins.
- Baking time:
- 10 mins. to 12 mins.
- Total time:
- 34 mins. to 20 hrs 40 mins.
- Yield:
- about 4 dozen 3" cookies, or 7 dozen 2 1/4" cookies
- Recipe comments (24) »
Tips from our bakers
- The sugar-salt coating can be made more or less assertive, your choice. Use the lesser amount of salt for a less adventuresome audience; the greater amount for those who love the salty/sweet experience. It's easy to make some of both; just divide the dough in half, and make the coating both ways, rolling half the cookies in the saltier coating, half in the milder.
Reviews
11/16/2009
Very tasty cookie. Most of us enjoyed the salty-sweet combination. The saltiness didn't appeal to several people, though. My cookies didn't flatten out as much as usual after refrigerating the dough for 4 hours. They were completely fine, though, and not too hard. I'm thinking of trying this recipe with chocolate chips instead of the butterscotch chips or by leaving out the chips and increasing the pecans (I love nuts). Thanks for a great recipe and I love the blog!
11/15/2009
My favorite cookie recipe! We love the layers of flavors and textures in this cookie -- sweet, salty, soft, crunchy. Perfect for our holiday cookie boxes!
11/06/2009
One of the most swoon-worthy recipes I've made. I love the combination of sweet and salty, and this has the perfect balance. I took them into the office for "review and evaluation" and more than 20 people said "Don't change a thing!" More than 20 people also said "Can I have another one?" I used the vanilla-butternut flavoring, and that also helped these stand tall on the flavor-meter. I've already made this three times, and will make more this weekend. Thank you SO much!
10/20/2009
I was worried that these were too sweet, but everyone who tried them absolutely loved them. That touch of salt is perfect!
10/13/2009
These were fabulous! I only had vanilla extract, so I used that plus a teaspoon or so of Meyer's Rum. Yes, these are very sweet, but the salt in the coating is a perfect foil for the sweetness. I love to try new recipes, so I don't often make the same recipe twice, but you can bet I will be baking these again & again.
10/11/2009
I wanted to make these as soon as I saw the recipe. Alas, had none of the recommended flavorings on hand. Ordered the butterscotch flavoring; received on Friday. Made the dough Saturday and am baking this morning. The recipe is as good as it sounds. The house smells wonderful. The cookies are ~very~ sweet. I will use more salt next time.
10/05/2009
Amazing. I initially thought that those who loved butter pecan ice cream would be big fans. Turns out even those who don't like that particular kind of ice cream were big fans. Yum.
09/27/2009
These are wonderful. My husband and I both love them. The salty-sweet is what caught my attention; they are crispy, light and full of flavor with the nuts and chips in them. This recipe is a keeper.
09/17/2009
I made these last night with the butterscotch flavor, and used a few extra pecans and chips, well, because excess might be my middle name. They are delicious and my husband loves them! I ended up with well-shaped, not spreading cookies despite not chilling the dough - probably because of the extra chunks. So that's one way to control the spread. The recipe made 52 cookies for me - again, extra chunks. Also, I used half light-brown sugar and half dark-brown, because I didn't realize my light-brown sugar supplies were so short. It didn't seem to have a negative effect.
09/15/2009
The sugar sweetness almost overwhelms the great flavor of this cookie. With the dough already made up I could not reduce the sugar other than not roll them in the sugar/salt coating. Since my family liked the salty/sweet aspect of these cookies I tried just shaking a little salt over the tops. This was OK but I think reducing the sugar amount in the recipie might be a better solution.
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