A Little Tea Cookie

This little writing hobby of mine is turning into a major catalyst for my lifestyle choices. Sure, I tend to choose article topics that seem interesting to me, but then I plunge headfirst and become The Biggest Fan of whatever I'm writing about.

Exhibit A: I recently wrote an article on Community Supported Agriculture (more commonly known as CSA) for a local publication, The Prairie Independent. However, not only did I write the story, but after the article was completed, I talked with my husband and we ended up becoming CSA members ourselves at Riverbound Farm, despite the fact that we maintain a large backyard garden and typically can't eat all our tomatoes ourselves in the first place. I was just so smitten with the McGinness family, I couldn't help myself.

Exhibit B: I recently finished a soon-to-be-published article about tea and although I've been a long time tea drinker, the act of writing that article opened my eyes to the simple joys of tea and I find myself sipping cups of English Breakfast and genmaicha with renewed enthusiasm, picking up a couple extra tins of tea leaves at Steep Me A Cup Of Tea and deciding to enjoy a proper cup a little more often (in fact, I'm sipping on a mug of tea as I type. Well, not literally as I type. I'm not that talented.)

And as if my gusto for tea needed any extra enticement, I then found this book at the library:

When I spotted it on the New Books shelf, I think I startled the woman next to me because I literally let out a gasp of excitement. I've been eyeing Breakfast Lunch Tea for a long time, however when it first came out, I recall looking it up on Amazon and seeing an incredible price of $50, too high for me to be purchasing a cookbook (although I know see it listed at the much more reasonable price of $20 - so maybe that one I first saw was an imported British version? A first edition?).

Every recipe in here can be described with one word: lovely.  Lovely little cakes and biscuits, lovely risottos and salads, lovely scones and pancakes. Being an English bakery in Paris, everything is a little tinier, a little simpler, a little more elegant than we're accustomed to seeing state-side. No wonder people went ga-ga over this cookbook (myself included).

So I flipped to the Tea section and decided on these pecan cookies, mostly because I had all the ingredients in my pantry. A little cookie to enjoy with a cuppa tea on a rainy Sunday. Lovely.

Pecan Cookies
Called Pecan Biscuits in the British/French cookbook Breakfast Lunch Tea, these little morsels aren't much to look at, but these simple, tender, delicately sweet cookies melt in your mouth and beg to be washed down with a hot mug of milky tea. Makes about 24 cookies.

1 cup softened butter (the original recipe calls for unsalted, but I like a touch of salt in my sweets, so I used salted)
1 generous cup pecan nuts
1/4 cup superfine sugar, plus 1 Tablespoon (Domino is a common supermarket brand of superfine sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the pecans on a baking tray and roast them for about 15 mins or until they start to smell fragrant and nutty. Place the toasted pecans in a blender or food processor, add the 1 Tablespoon sugar, and grind them finely. Set aside to cool.

Beat the flour with the 1/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy, then add vanilla extract. Slowly beat in flour and lastly the ground nuts. If the dough seems too soft, put it in the fridge to chill for 15 mins.

Break off pieces of dough and shape them into 3/4" balls. Place on baking sheet, press down slightly to flatten (optional), and bake for 15 mins or until lightly golden. They taste best completely cooled.