Ingredients:
• 8 oz butter at room temp
• 2.5 oz sugar
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 4oz pecans/walnuts, toasted and finely ground
• 4 oz pecans/walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
• 10 oz AP flour
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• powdered sugar to coat the cookies.
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Cream butter, sugar, vanilla bean seeds and salt till light in color and creamy.
3. Add all the nuts, stir together.
4. Add the flour and stir till everything is combined.
5. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces; roll out each piece till it is about 10 inches long.
6. Score the log into 12 even pieces and cut the logs at the score lines.
7. Roll each piece of dough into a little ball.
8. Bake on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper till it is nice and golden light brown.
9. Cool cookies for a few minutes when they are luke-warm roll in powdered sugar a few times for a generous coating of powdered sugar.
There are two secrets to this recipe, one is to make sure that your nuts are toasted and cooled before using so the toasting refreshes the nuts and makes them smell delicious.
The second secret is baking the cookies through so it does not taste like raw dough in the middle about 16 to 20 minutes.
Dobra Bielinski, M.A.
For over a decade has been the proprietress of Delightful Pastries, a cozy European bakery three locations: in Jefferson Park, Chicago French Market and Old Town.
She’s meticulous about her food, sourcing fresh ingredients from local producers as much as possible.
She graduated from UIC, earning bachelor’s degrees in French and history and a master’s in U.S. foreign policy. But she was bored with academia. As an undergrad she’d spent a year in Paris studying at the Sorbonne and fallen in love with the city’s pastry shops, so rather than work toward a doctorate as she’d planned, she decided to change course entirely and enroll at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago.
Jefferson Park
5927 W. Lawrence Avenue, Chicago, IL 60630
Phone: (773) 545-7215
Chicago French Market
131 N. Clinton Avenue, Chicago, IL 60661
Phone: (312) 234-9644
Old Town
1710 N. Wells Street, Chicago, IL 60614
Phone: (312) 255-0724