Three Delicious Ways to Make Pecan Sand Tarts {Pecan Shortbread Cookies}

Pecan Sand Tarts are 6-ingredient, not too sweet, buttery, 2-bite cookies that are blissfully addicting. As in, I-can’t-stop-eating-these-but-I-don’t-care-because-every-single-bite-is-worth-it kind of addicting. Here are three delicious ways to make these simple little cookies.

Oh, lawdy. I have eaten way to many of these little cookies just while sitting here writing this post. They are just so… eatable. They are small – 2 or 3 bites – so, you know, practically no calories at all. Or so I tell myself as I reach for just. one. more.

Part of their addictiveness is that they are not too sweet. Also, the melt-in-your-mouth buttery part doesn’t hurt. The pecans are ground into very small pieces, like sand, so that the nuts contribute flavor without messing up that lovely fine texture of really great shortbread.

This Sand Tart Recipe comes from my Grandma.

My Grandma was the cookie making queen of our family and an amazing cook. She was one of those people who showed you she loved you by caring for you. From the day I was born, she cooked for me, sewed stuff for me, watched over me, attended every single birthday party, school event, and performance I was apart of, sent cards and gifts for every occasion, and hosted countless parties, dinners and other gatherings. For her, love was an action, and she loved us well.

One year for Christmas, her and my Grandpa painstakingly typed and printed out a huge binder full of her most prized recipes. Every recipe has a little blurb reminicing about when she made it and who loved it. That recipe book is seriously one of the few things I’d grab if we had to run from the house with only what we could carry. It’s priceless.

This was one of the recipes in that book. In her introduction to the recipe she writes that for many years she made Spritz cookies at Christmas. (I remember.) Then, she made these and decided that they were just as good but so much easier, so they became her new Christmas shortbread cookie staple.

Three “flavors” of Sand Tarts.

Along with the original recipe, she suggests topping the sand tars with a chocolate kiss or adding mini chocolate chips for variety. In this recipe, I include instructions for all three versions, because I seriously can’t decide which I like the best. Plain Sand Tarts – with no chocolate – are such a satisfying two-bite treat. But, adding chocolate is also delicious because, well, chocolate and butter and pecans. Yum.

I feel strongly that the best case scenario is to make a few Sand Tarts of each variety – keep some plain, stir in some mini-chocolate chips to others, and top a few with a chocolate kiss. Life requires a lot of sacrifices. Which kind of Sand Tart you make (and eat) should not be one of them.

This is one time when you really should have it all.

More Yummy Cookie Recipes:

If you give this recipe a try, let me know! Leave a comment, rate it, or take a picture and tag it #ofbatteranddough on Instagram.

Happy baking!

Sand Tarts, three ways

Author: Rebecca Blackwell
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 24 minutes
Total Time: 44 minutes
Yield: 32 - 42 cookies 1x

Print Recipe

Description

Pecan Sand Tarts are not too sweet, buttery, 2-bite cookies that are blissfully addicting. Here are 3 ways to make these simple little cookies.

Scale

Ingredients

1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (16 tbsp, or 8 ounces) unsalted butter
4 tbsp + 1 cup powdered (confectioners) sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Optional additions:

Chocolate kisses (I prefer using dark chocolate, but milk is delicious as well)
1 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips (Use 1 cup of chocolate chips for the entire batch. If you’re only adding chocolate chips to a portion of the dough, scale down accordingly.)

Instructions

Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Add the pecans and 1 cup of the flour to a food processor and pulse 4 or 5 times to grind the pecans into a coarse powder, the consistency of sand. Dump this mixture into a bowl and add the remaining cup of flour and salt. Stir to combine and set aside.
Cream the butter and 4 tablespoons of powdered sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy – about 3-4 minutes. Beat in the vanilla.
Add the flour and pecan mixture to the butter and sugar and beat on low just until all the ingredients are combined. If you’re adding mini chocolate chips, stir them into the dough.
Add the remaining cup of powdered sugar to a bowl. Form the dough into 1 to 2-inch balls, rolling each piece between your palms, then rolling the ball of dough in the powdered sugar to coat. Lay the balls of sugar-coated dough on the parchment lined baking sheets, spacing them about 2-inches apart.
For plain sand tarts and sand tarts with mini-chocolate chips, press a fork into the balls of dough, pressing down across the cookie in one direction, then again perpendicular to create a grid pattern.
For cookies with a chocolate kiss, press a chocolate kiss into each ball of dough, pressing the dough down a bit to cradle the chocolate kiss.
Bake cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and set the cookie sheet on a wire rack. Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.

Category: Cookies

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Pecan Sand Tarts

Three Delicious Ways to Make Pecan Sand Tarts {Pecan Shortbread Cookies}