The Tiny Old-School Holiday Dessert You'll Rarely Find At The Bakery

If you fancy yourself a baker, the holiday season can be a busy time — but hopefully it's a fun sort of busyness. Christmas cookies are a must-have, and if you're making them at home, maybe you should try a recipe you won't find at a bakery. Have you ever had pecan tassies? They're small cookies that are a lot like pecan pies in terms of ingredients, with a few key differences, like a cream cheese-infused crust. Pecan pie is one of the most popular pies in many U.S. states, but this smaller cookie version is much less well-known.

Whether you'd truly consider pecan tassies to be under the radar might depend on where you grew up. In plenty of southern households, the little pecan pie cookies are a common sight. They're a less common sight in commercial bakeries, and the reason for this likely goes back to the dessert's history and that cream cheese crust. Pecan tassies were being featured in recipe pamphlets from the New York-based cream cheese brand Philadelphia, owned by Kraft Heinz. Starting around the 1980s, pamphlets like these were showing up in grocery store checkout aisles with recipes for pecan tassies listed there, though these cookies likely had already been around for a couple of decades. This advertising, combined with pecan tassie recipes also appearing in housekeeping magazines, could explain their reputation with home cooks but not commercial bakeries.

Those pecan tassie recipes have been mostly consistent over the decades. A good example comes from a recipe in a Pampered Chef booklet from the early 2000s: a shell with a flour, cream cheese, and butter crust packed with a filling of pecans, brown sugar, vanilla, and egg. Miniature tart or muffin pans are used to create the shape.

Other people like to add bourbon into the filling to make the dessert even more of a southern-style cookie. Besides the tiny size, the only thing keeping it from being a mini pecan pie is the added cream cheese, as many recipes do call for the corn syrup or maple syrup that is often found in pecan pies. You can also freeze them for later, just like you can freeze a pecan pie.

@chouquettekitchen

Pecan Tassies🎁 These have always been a favorite in my house. So popular, in fact, that my mom, over the years, has developed techniques to make these little treats more efficiently, since she usually makes hundreds. Freezing the muffin tins, using a tart tamper, and squeezing out the filling will help you speed your tassie production. Because once you make these, you will be making more. Promise. Yields 24. Crust: 3 oz cream cheese, room temperature ½ c (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened 1 c all-purpose flour Pinch of kosher salt Filling: ¾ c packed dark brown sugar 1 egg, room temperature 1 T unsalted butter, melted Pinch salt 1 t vanilla bean paste or extract 2 t bourbon or maple syrup (optional) ¾ c chopped pecans Spray a 24-count mini muffin tin (or two 12-count mini muffin tins). Place in the freezer while you make dough. In stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat cream cheese and butter until smooth, about 3 minutes. Slowly add in the flour and salt, mix until dough comes together. Turn dough out onto a piece of plastic wrap. Shape dough into a rectangle and wrap. Refrigerate at least 1 hour (can be made 2 days ahead and kept refrigerated). Preheat the oven to 350. Remove dough from the refrigerator and divide rectangle into 24 cubes of dough. Roll each into a ball and press into the bottom and up the sides of each mini muffin cup (a mini tart tamper is useful here, but your fingers will work too). Transfer pan to the freezer (or refrigerator) while you make the filling. Combine brown sugar, egg, butter, salt, vanilla, and bourbon and mix with a whisk (or mini-prep) until smooth. Remove muffin pan from the freezer. Spoon 1 teaspoon chopped pecans into each tartlet shell. Pour filling over pecans almost to the top of the shell. A squeeze bottle will vastly speed the process, but don't worry if you don't have one. Transfer the pan to the oven. Bake 15 minutes, then drop temperature to 250 and bake 10 more minutes, until crusts are lightly browned and filling in the center is just set. Transfer to a wire rack to cool to room temperature. #chouquettekitchen #pecantassies #tassies #holiday #privatechef #baking #holidaybaking #food #dessert #fyp

♬ original sound – Catherine Pla

In any case, the results are nutty and not overly sugary. The fact that pecan tassies have a more even ratio of crust and filling helps make them less sweet than their larger pecan pie cousins. The word "tassie," by the way, likely comes from the Scottish word for small cup, although you could certainly call them miniature pecan pies and nobody would be confused about what you're baking. If you're planning to bake Christmas cookies this year, and you want to experiment with more than just plain shortbread, Santa Claus probably wouldn't mind some pecan tassies and milk instead.