Chocolate dipped pecan shortbread cookies

Ingredients

• • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/3 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup finely ground toasted pecans
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Ingredients for decorating:

• 4 ounces high-quality dark chocolate, such as Lindt, chopped
• 1/3 cup toasted pecans

Instructions

1. How to toast pecans: Toast pecans at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes. Watch carefully to make sure they don’t burn – they burn easily. Cool them off completely. To make finely ground nuts, place toasted pecans into food processor and process until finely ground.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar until creamy. Add vanilla and continue beating. Add 1/2 cup finely ground pecans and beat to combine. In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt, then add mixed flour and salt to the creamy butter-sugar mixture. Do not overmix, just enough to combine all ingredients and form a cookie dough.
3. Shape dough into 4 logs of different thickness (to make cookies of different radius – large and small). Wrap each log in plastic wrap and put wrapped cookie dough in the freezer for 30 minutes, then in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 325. After cookie dough has been in the freezer and in the refrigerator, unwrap plastic and slice each log into thin cookie slices. Place cookie slices on parchment-lined ungreased baking sheet, spacing 1 inch apart. Bake for about 15 minutes, don’t let the cookies get brown. After about 15 minutes of baking, let cookies cool for a couple of minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely.
5. To decorate cookies, melt chocolate in a small skillet over medium heat, just until chocolate melts, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
6. Using spatula, brush half of the cookie on one side only (no chocolate on the bottom of the cookie) and along the cookie side. Dip the chocolate side of the cookie into coarsely chopped pecans. Return to rack. If you like, You can leave some cookies just covered with chocolate, without pecan crumbs. You can also leave some cookies just plain (no chocolate, no pecans on top of chocolate). Repeat with remaining cookies. Let cookies dry on rack for at least 1 hour, for chocolate to harden.

Notes

Adapted from :juliasalbum