There are Christmas cookies and then there are your Mom’s Christmas cookies. The latter clearly being emphasized here. And if your Mom is anywhere near as good a baker/chef/nurse/therapist as mine, well then you really don’t need any gifts this year, do you?
Yes, I have a rockstar Momma. She may work a gazillion hours a week and find everybody’s missing something but she too has her quirks. As in her chicken scratch handwriting and scientific shorthand techniques. Case and point, this recipe......I asked her for it a while back for this week’s post and below is the text I received. Besides the migraine-inducing task of deciphering it, she includes some ingredients as if we regularly converse along side the periodic table.
What in the world is a tsp of NA????
I’m thinking like a teaspoon of, ‘nah- not an important ingredient, skip this’. Or maybe, “NA“ was suppose to be ”NON” and she forgot to write something thereafter. I have 3 kids Mom, I don’t have time to decode this stuff.
So a phone call later, she laughs hysterically and oh-so-casually goes, “N-A, Gina, chemistry, periodic table, sodium, salt, c‘mon”. Really Mom? You‘ve taken your nursing degree a bit too far here!
Thankfully, I’ve transcribed her version of the recipe to your, and my, literacy level. Your’e welcome:)
Oh and the cookies.......they are ridiculously amazing. My personal favorite of our annual Christmas cookie day. They yield an enormous amount though. I asked Mom if the recipe could be cut down. Her response was simply, “No, make them all and share.”
So that being said, here I share with you, one of the best cookie recipes you‘ll ever find. Merry Everything friends and enjoy......
Pecan Pickups (really walnut pickups, but whatev:)
Yields- about 100 (wow!)
Ingredients:
crust:
3, 8 oz cream cheese blocks, softened to room temp.
3 sticks (24 TBS) salted butter, softened to room temp.
3 Cups all-purpose flour
filling:
3 Cups light brown sugar
4 eggs
4 TBS salted butter, melted
4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
4 Cups chopped walnuts
preheat oven to 350 F.
Using a mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter (for crust) until combined. Add the flour and mix until dough forms.
Press a spoonful of crust into the molds on the mini muffin pan. Make sure to press down into the bottom and all the way up the sides.
Make the filling: beat the brown sugar and eggs until well combined. Add the butter, vanilla and salt. Beat well. Add in the walnuts and stir thoroughly to distribute evenly.
Fill the crust-lined molds all the way to the top.
Bake for 17-20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes in pan, then pop each out to cool completely on wire rack.
*** Since you will be making so many batches depending on how many mini muffin tins you have, be sure to refrigerate crust dough in between baking the batches! ***
Me & My Momma