• Cuisine: American
• Course: Dessert

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) margarine (do not use reduced-fat margarine), chilled
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract (may substitute 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
• 1 cup (4 ounces) pecans, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted, for dusting the cookies

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour and salt. Set aside.

Cut the margarine into pieces. In a large bowl using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the margarine, butter and 1/2 cup of confectioners' sugar until smooth, 1 minute. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix until combined. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and mix just until it is incorporated and the dough looks smooth and shiny. Using a wooden spoon, add the pecans.

Take a rounded teaspoon of dough and roll it between the palms of your hands until it forms a cylinder that is thick in the middle with tapered ends. Place on the prepared baking sheet and repeat with the remaining dough, spacing the cookies about 1 inch apart. (The cookies do not spread a lot during baking.) Curve each cookie into a crescent.

Bake the cookies until the edges and pointed ends are light brown, about 25 minutes. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer them to a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes.

Place the remaining 1 cup of confectioners' sugar in a shallow dish or pie plate. Add several still-warm cookies to the sugar and roll each cookie in it to coat evenly. Return the cookies to the wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining cookies. The cookies can be stored between layers of wax paper in a tightly covered container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Here are a few cookie-baking tips I've culled over the years:

* For the most even baking, bake cookies one sheet at a time, on the middle rack of the oven.

* Watch cookies as the end of their baking time nears. Most finish quickly, and they can darken (read burn) quickly.

* Cookies lend themselves to baking ahead and freezing. For best results, wrap the cookies up to three together -- and seal them in a container or resealable plastic freezer bag. Wrapping cookies this way before freezing them takes minutes and adds tremendous protection against their becoming stale and picking up unwanted odors. Be sure to defrost cookies with their wrapping on, so any moisture that forms is on the wrapper, not the cookie.

-- Elinor Klivans

Recipe Source:

Adapted from "125 Cookies to Bake, Nibble, and Savor" (Broadway, 1998) by Elinor Klivans.

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