"Fat Tuesday" is just around the corner! Even though I grew up in Maryland, I love Southern food, particularly New Orleans cuisine! I have eaten jambalaya, crawfish, hush puppies, dirty rice, the list goes on and on. I have never made any of the traditional, "Mardi Gras," desserts like a "King's Cake," but how about pralines?? Pralines are candy typically made of pecans and brown sugar. How about making it into a cookie instead?? These were pretty delicious if I do say so myself!!! Of course I had to "sample," a few!!!
Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white flour
3/4 cup pecans, chopped
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside. In a large bowl, cream the butter and the brown sugar until creamy with an electric mixer or by hand with a large spoon. Add the vanilla extract and flour. Mix until well combined. "Fold," in the pecans. Roll into 18 equal sized balls and place them on the cookie sheet. Bake for 18 minutes or until the bottoms of the cookies are starting to turn light brown. Remove from the oven and let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet five minutes, before transferring them to a wire rack to continue to cool.
