The first recipe in the book is for pecan shorties. In the picture accompanying the recipe, they are pale little round things. Half of them have a thick swirl of chocolate on top, haphazardly drizzled all over the counter. I have never encountered this cookie in the wild. It has six ingredients (why no eggs?). First impressions? This seems super-easy. Mix, bake, make a mess with chocolate.
Timeline. Starting this at 5 PM. I can tell my wife does not believe I will be done in time for her to make dinner at 6. I feel pretty confident.
5:15 PM. Apparently icing sugar = powdered sugar.
5:35 PM. I forgot to sift the powdered sugar. So many clumps…
5:40 PM. I have destroyed the clumps, but entered a somewhat existential realm trying to determine what “light and fluffy” and “fairly coarsely chopped” means.
5:52 PM. I have a “firm dough”. I realize the oven was turned off after I roasted the pecans.
6:00 PM. First batch in……..Ok, ok I see the time…….
6:15 PM. First batch out. They are pretty puffy looking and pale. I thought they would be more flat. I flattened the second batch more. I put the first batch back in.
6:17 PM. Now the first batch is done. Not sure where the time has gone. May have been abducted by aliens.
6:45 PM. Both batches done now. Making a double boiler for melting chocolate. Poured wine for wife.
7:00 PM. They are done! Somehow I used a lot of different bowls even though this recipe had only a few ingredients.
Final Judgement. Appearance — Ok. Batch 2 looks more like the picture than batch one. They are totally different in shape, though both are equally golden on the edges. The chocolate is a little clunky but set nice with a good shine. Texture — Good. Crispy, tender, even distribution of pecans. Flavor — Great. Can’t go wrong with nuts and chocolate. Not overly sweet.
Overall? I’ll arbitrarily rate this 5 out of 10. This probably shouldn’t have taken 2 hours to complete, and they could have looked more appetizing. Not sure if I would share these with neighbors unless they looked a little more uniform and the chocolate coating was less smudgy.
Cords and Crumbs by Andy 