Pecan Sandies

My grandpa liked the chocolate chip cookies I once made, so I thought for Chinese New Years, I could make him some other cookies he liked. Looking around, I stumbled across some very yummy looking recipes for pecan sandies, and finally settled on using the one from Smitten Kitchen. Let's just say, the result was melt-in-your mouth delicious, and made the whole house smell amazing while baking, to boot. As part of my standard operating procedure, I reduced the amount of sugar - for this recipe, I'm not sure that was the best of ideas. At least if something's not sweet enough, you can always sweeten it by dipping it in chocolate, or spreading some Nutella on before eating! :)

Ingredients

slightly over 1 cup pecans
2 cups flour
1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Bake the pecans for about 12min, until they are browned and nutty. They will be delicious at this point, so feel free to bake a few extra to munch on. After they cool, grind the nuts with 1/4 cup of flour in the food processor (depending on the seal of your food processor, it might make a mess, so clear the area around it). Set aside.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together. Stir in the vanilla. Sift together the remaining flour, salt, and baking powder. Add to the wet ingredients until just combined. Stir in the nut mixture. Form the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill until firm, about 2hrs.

3. Preheat the oven to 325F. I cut the dough into four quarters, then rolled each quarter between two sheets of wax paper until they were the thickness I wanted my cookies (it doesn't rise much in the oven). Cut into squares of desired size. The recipe said to not reroll scraps - I'm not sure why, but I just baked them as was and munched on them myself. Maybe that's why?

4. Put on baking sheet with a little space in between (they don't spread, so you don't need that much space in between). Bake at 325F until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Cool on wire rack; repeat for remaining dough.