Pecan Tassies

Submitted by cookiebaker

"This is one of my favorite Christmas cookie tray recipes. I got this recipe from Goodhousekeeping Magazine many years ago."

 

• Ready In: 50mins
• Ingredients: 9
• Yields: 24 cookies

ingredients

• 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1⁄2 cup unsalted butter, plus
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2⁄3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup pecans, toasted and finely chopped

directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In small bowl, with mixer at high speed, beat cream cheese with 1/2 cup butter until creamy.
3. Reduce speed to low, add flour and granulated sugar and beat until well mixed.
4. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes.
5. In medium bowl mix brown sugar, vanilla, salt, egg, pecans and remaining 1 tablespoon or butter until filling is blended.
6. With floured hands, divide dough into 24 equal pieces (dough will be very soft).
7. With floured fingertips, gently press dough pieces evenly onto bottoms and up sides of twenty-four 1 3/4" by 3/4 to 1" ungreased miniature muffin-pan cups.
8. I make hundreds of these cookies every Christmas so I use a wooden tart tamper to form the shells.
9. Spoon a heaping pecan filling into each cup.
10. Bake 30 minutes or until filling is set and edges of crust are golden.
11. With tip of knife, gently loosen tassies from muffin-pan cups and place on wire rack to cool completely.
12. Store tassies in tightly covered container up to 1 week.

Reviews

[NorthwestGal]

These were wonderful cookie treats, very much like a little mini pecan pie. But I had a little trouble with the recipe. First, Step #5 of the instructions mentions adding salt, but salt is not included in the ingredient list. Second, I ran out of the pecan filling before all the pastry shells were filled, so I had to mix up a second (small) batch of the pecan filling at the last minute. That problem might be attributed to the fact that some of the muffin shells might have been a little too high and took extra filling. But the recipe doesn't specify how far up the sides to press the dough. And it wasn't until after I had made a few that I realized the filling was not going to last. Some of the muffin cups were already filled though, so I could not start over with those ones. I was just careful to do better with the second pan (pressing the dough a little less than 1/2" up the sides of each muffin cup), and that worked out much better. Some people might not need such basic instructions spelled out for them, but I had no experience from which to draw, and therefore had to guess about those kinds of details. Despite those problems, they were wonderful cookies. Thanks for sharing your recipe, cookiebaker. Made for "2011 Let's PARTY" in the Contests & Events forum.

 

[Wendelina]

My mom and I make these every year for Christmas -- they're always the first items to disappear! Delicious!