Praline Cookies by @poobou

I am not a master chef. Seriously. I have a few basic family dinner recipes down, but that’s about it.

Once upon a time, I lived in a beautiful city called Seattle (*sob* I miss it!), and I was friends with a fabulous group of ladies who liked to get together sometimes for a “Baking Day,” where we’d all each make a different dessert-type thing, then trade-off, and everyone got a whole bunch of samples of yumminess to take home with them.

Only, you know, my big idea for a dessert is to do slice-and-bake cookies and then put some frosting on them. Which is totally delicious, btw.

So I called my mom because I needed a unique dessert idea, and she gave me this recipe, which is my great-grandmother Ma Mere’s Praline Cookies. (Yes, my mom’s side of the family is from New Orleans. I guess the French terms of endearment give it away.)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup pecan halves

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. Let the butter soften, add brown sugar and beat until smooth. (That’s what she said.)
3. Add egg and mix well, then add flour, salt and vanilla.
4. Add pecans. When well mixed, shape into balls (hee! I said “balls”) about the size of one of those little rubber bouncy balls you can get out of a vending machine for a quarter. Place on a buttered cookie sheet and flatten to about 1/4″ thick.
5. Bake 12 minutes or until golden brown. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

I made these, and y’all, I took one bite, and promptly burst into tears because I swear to the baby Jeegus (as my three year-old calls Him), that it tasted like my childhood. I can’t even explain it. But they are fabulous. Go try them and see for yourself.

~
Photo credit: Rosana Prada / CC BY 2.0

Cindy writes at PooBou.com, and is a total nerd (in a good way, she works with computers for a living). She’s a Southern girl who married a British guy, and together they produced a daughter with some sort of bizarre hybrid accent. In her spare time, she drinks too much Diet Coke and goofs around on her iPhone.

4 Responses to “Praline Cookies by @poobou”

1. AmazingGreis says:

   02/04/2010 at 1:44 pm

   Yum!

   [Reply]
2. February 2010 Posts | Room 704 says:

   02/04/2010 at 2:53 pm

   [...] 16. Praline Cookies [...]
3. Al_Pal says:

   02/05/2010 at 7:01 pm

   Sounds soooo yummeh. Must. Try! I’ll let you know when I try them.

   [Reply]
4. VDog says:

   02/06/2010 at 8:26 am

   LOVE that you worked a “that’s what she said” into your post!!!

   And hey @al_pal – maybe WE can have a baking day and make these!! NOM NOM NOM

   [Reply]