Butter Pecan Cookies

Butter Pecan Cookies - Gluten Free

These gluten free butter pecan cookies are not only delicious they’re also very easy to throw together too.  With just a few basic ingredients these scrumptious cookies mimic the flavor of butter pecan ice cream very well.   And considering the high price of gluten free cookies, you’ll want to keep this recipe handy. 

You won’t believe how good gluten free can taste.  It all sounds so good right?  But this recipe is actually the end result of one of the biggest baking debacles of my life.  If you want to read about what really happened the afternoon I made these little beauties, scroll to the bottom past the recipe tutorial.  

Butter Pecan Cookies

Prep time: 30 min

Cook time:  18 min

Ingredients

• ¾ cup butter, very well softened
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 ½ cups gluten Free Bisquick (see notes for regular instructions)
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• ¾ cup butterscotch morsels

Video Tutorial:

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F  (or 175 °C)
2. In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then add the eggs and vanilla and beat until well combined.
3. Add the Bisquick and continue mixing until a stiff dough forms then stir in the pecans and butterscotch morsels until they are well dispersed throughout the dough.
4. Refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes to make it easier to work with then roll the dough into 1 inch balls and place them onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Bake them for 16-18 minutes or until they’re golden brown around the edges.
6. Cool the cookies on a baking rack for about 10 minutes and serve.

Notes:  If you’re not following a gluten free diet stir together 2 ½ cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder and ¼ tsp salt in place of the gluten free Bisquick. The recipe makes 4 dozen cookies but you double or halve the recipe depending on whether you want more or less than that amount.

Now for the Epic Butter Pecan Biscotti Catastrophe

All right now that you've seen the recipe for those delicious butter pecan cookies I've got to fill you in on what really happened that afternoon.  I assure you that it was more disastrous than delicious.    

You see, I had actually set out to make butter pecan biscotti and not cookies the day the cookies were inevitably born. After looking over a bunch of my old biscotti recipes I devised the recipe that you saw in the cookies above.  Then I mixed the dough, shaped it into logs and baked them for 25 minutes. 

Butter Pecan Biscotti Shaped into Logs

When they came out of the oven I let them cool, but in hindsight it obviously wasn’t long enough since they began to crumble badly when I began slicing them.  Remember these things are gluten free thus more fragile than anything I was used to working with.  Quickly I decided to carry the baking sheet over to my COLD marble table in the dining room where I was sure they’d cool in no time.    

Crumbling Biscotti

Then I TRIPPED...the biscotti went flying and landed on the floor in an irreparable mess.      

Luckily, I had tasted a piece of what I had been slicing in the kitchen.  They were so scrumptious and buttery that I liked them just the way they were and thought they'd make an outstanding cookie.  

The Biscotti Catastrophe

So, I mixed another batch of the dough, and rolled it into balls and thus the butter pecan cookie was born.

Butter Pecan Cookies 
A Nice End to a Disastrous Day 

Eventually I’ll attempt the biscotti again but I just couldn’t handle two disasters in one day if the second batch was an epic fail.  By making the cookies I knew that I was virtually    guaranteed success.  isn't that what it's all about in the kitchen anyway.  Of course, when I do accomplish that successful batch biscotti, I’ll update this post with a link.

And, always remember that failure often opens the door to unexpected successes in the long run.  I wish I had remembered that lesson when I was screaming at the top of my lungs as the biscotti hit the floor.