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Maple Pecan Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Maple Pecan Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Chelsea Colbath
A maple-sweetened cookie that's absolutely loaded with pecans. Tender, studded with dark chocolate, and perfectly sweet, these are the ultimate pecan cookie.
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20 minutes
TOTAL TIME: 12 minutes

Ingredients
  

  • 1 1/2 cups raw pecans*
  • 8 Tablespoons 1/2 cup or 1 stick grass-fed butter, at room temperature**
  • 1/2 cup pure maple syrup dark amber, if possible
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup white whole wheat flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup roughly chopped dark chocolate
  • a few extra pecan and chocolate pieces to press onto the tops (optional)

Instructions
 

  • 1.Turn oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and spread pecans out on the pan. Put the pan directly into the oven to toast (no need to wait for it to preheat). Toast the pecans for 10 minutes, or until they start turning slightly more brown and smelling nutty/toasted. When finished toasting, remove from the oven and let cool on the pan. Keep the oven at 350 for the cookies.
  • 2. While pecans toast in the oven, make the cookie batter. First, make sure your butter is very soft. If not, I recommend microwaving it in 10-second intervals on low power until soft. Add soft butter and maple syrup to a mixing bowl, then whisk to combine. Add the egg and vanilla, and whisk again to fully incorporate the eggs into the butter mixture.
  • 3. Add all dry ingredients to the batter, and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until combined.
  • 4. Transfer pecans to a large cutting board and chop until only fine bits of pecan remain (they should be about the size of oats- this will take you a few minutes of chopping). Alternately, you could dump the pecans into a food processor and pulse 5-10 times until the pecans are mostly ground up. You aren't looking for chunks of pecans, but for the pecans to just be small bits throughout the entire cookie, much like an oatmeal cookie. Add pecans to the cookie dough with the chopped chocolate, and stir to fully mix them into the dough.
  • 5. Scoop cookies onto the same parchment-lined pan you toasted the pecans on. I used a cookie scoop to keep them all the same size, and got exactly 12 cookies. You could also portion them out with a 1/4 cup measuring cup, or just eyeball it with a spoon. If desired, press a few chunks of pecan and chocolate into the tops of each ball of cookie dough. Transfer the pan to the fridge or freezer to chill for 5-10 minutes, since the pecans may have slightly warmed the batter.
  • 6. Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until cookies are golden and still slightly soft in the middle. If overbaked, these cookies tend to get cakey/fluffy, not crunchy, so I recomment starting at 12 minutes and checking every minute after to make sure they don't overbake. Let cookies cool on the pan for 5 minutes before eating.
  • 7. Leftover cookies (if such a thing exists) can be kept at room temperature for up to 5 days, or frozen for several months.

Notes

**If your pecans are already roasted, you can skip the first step, preheat your oven to 350, and proceed with the instructions as written.
*Grass-fed butter is more nutritious than factory-farmed butter, and also has more flavor than generic grocery store butter. I can find Kerrygold Butter at every major grocery store (Trader Joe's is always the cheapest, FYI), and some stores carry Vital Farms brand butter (which is also grass-fed) or a local option, too. Using the highest quality butter possible makes a difference in the flavor of these cookies, so if you can't find grass-fed butter, I recommend buying an organic option instead.
Adapted from my Old-School Oatmeal Raisin Cookies