Pecan Tassies
Pecan tassies are one of those quintissential Christmas cookies that remind me of being a kid. I can remember sitting at the dining room table at my great aunt’s house, usually on my mom’s lap, and hand-picking treats off of the multiple cookie trays that were laid out. I always had my favorites, the ones I could pop in my mouth like candy, and these pecan tassies were at the top of the list. Even as a kid, I had love affair with pecan pie and so these cookies, which are bite-size renditions of the Thanksgiving classic, were always a must-have Christmas tradition for me.
I haven’t made these in quite a few years and for some reason I couldn’t find my copy of our family recipe. My mom hunted through all of her index cards, calls were made to my grandma and my great aunt, and this quickly became the phantom recipe. The most beloved recipe and suddenly no one could find their copy of the recipe! Conspiracy! My mom did another search of her books and finally found the original source – a ladies auxiliary cookbook for a local fire hall dating back to 1975. I love those yellowed pages – tried and true, battle-tested recipes passed on from generation to generation. I have had more than a few people tell me that these are the best pecan tassies they have ever had.
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I did the first batch of these by just rolling the dough into balls and pressing into the mini muffin cups, which is what the original recipe says to do. I had some trouble getting the dough a decent way up the sides of the cups without making it too thin and too thick in places. So for my second batch, I tried rolling out each little ball into a circle and then popping them into the muffin cups (seen above). That worked out much, much better and made for a more even (and deeper) crust. It’s slightly more time consuming, but I thought it yielded much better results.
I hope you love these cookies as much as our family does!
Is there a certain cookie or treat that reminds you of the holidays as a child?
One year ago: Peppermint Bark
Pecan Tassies
Ingredients
For the Dough:
- 1 cup (227 g) unsalted butter
- 6 ounces (170.1 g) cream cheese
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
For the Filling:
- 1½ cups (330 g) light brown sugar
- 1 cup (99 g) chopped pecans, plus more for sprinkling on top
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- ½ teaspoon (0.5 teaspoon) vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare mini muffin pans by greasing cups if it is not a nonstick pan; set aside.
- To make the dough, beat together the butter, cream cheese and flour on low speed of a stand or hand mixer until all of the flour is incorporated. Divide the dough into 48 pieces and roll into balls. Place on a plate or in a zip-top bag and refrigerate for about an hour.
- Either press the dough balls into the muffin cups and up the sides, or flatten the balls slightly with your palm and use a rolling pin to roll into a disk about 2-3 inches in diameter (a little larger than the size of the muffin cup opening) and place into the muffin cups.
- To make the filling, mix together the brown sugar, chopped pecans, eggs, melted butter and vanilla extra with a spoon and then evenly divide it between the dough-lined mini muffin cups. Top each with some additional chopped pecans.
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the tops are set. Cool for a few minutes in the muffin cups and then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely. The tassies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature.
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these look spectacular! who wouldn’t love the flavors of pecan pie in a cute little tart form?
http://www.pamperedchef.com/ordering/prod_details.tpc?prodId=184&catId=122&parentCatId=122&outletSubCat=&viewAllOutlet=
Here is a link for a mini tart press that works with the mini muffin pans. You just put your dough in the pan and press it with this tool and you don’t have to roll it out.
I just made these for my wife’s birthday this weekend. I halved the recipe and it worked great, there was just enough filling.
The filling was a little too sweet for me so I added some ground cinnamon, that seemed to tone down the sugary sweet and round out the overall flavor (for me anyway) I took photos too.
Thanks for the inspiration!
ooohhh i love pecan pie – my mouth is watering just thinking about it!
but my brother is allergic to nuts so i can’t make them? do you think theres anyway i could substitute the pecan pie filling with treacle tart filling? they look so scrummy!
I am going to try this recipe for my Mother in law who cannot eat nuts. I have eaten this recipe (my Mom made it) but I have never made it before. How well will this filling match up to the shells is a guess but worth a try. Here goes:
Poor Man’s Pecan Pie
1 cup dark corn syrup
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup quick cooking oats
2eggs beaten
Mix altogether, pour into shells and continue on with instructions from the Tassie recipe. Or bake in an unbaked pie shell @ 350 for 50 minutes. Cool, cut.
Hi Sarah, I don’t see why not!
Here’s a cool looking recipe for Faux Pecan Pie (no nuts) from Christy Jordan’s blog Southern Plate. It uses pretzels which sounds different, but apparently no one could tell the difference!
These look like a gem. Old cookbooks are the best! I love how they use real ingredients–No Sandra Lee.
Oh, these look wonderful! My pecan-pie-loving father in law would go nuts for these (oops, no pun intended!). Thanks for sharing, Michelle.
ahh Tassies! these were always the one holiday treat I could never get enough of. Mom would always make an extra 2 dozen just for me – it was either that… or have to make up another batch the night before the office Christmas party :)
Thanks for bringing back the memory! Yours look just as good :)
(um, got an extra dozen or so?)
These are sooo good! I make goodie bags for co-workers every year for Christmas and these are the #1 requested treat. People start asking for them in February.
These look lovely!!
These look great – I’ve never made them…maybe I will now!
Love some Pecan Tassies ! I use a shot glass with a slightly rounded bottom to even out dough. Works great for me and not another tool laying in the drawer.
Ooooh, like mini pecan pies. And I go bananas for cream cheese dough. These look utterly craveable. My mother also has a recipe that I just remembered after 15 years, out of the blue. I hounded her until she finally found it. Ah, nostalgia…
So cute!
My mom loved these tassies, too. I realized I have that Pampered Chef tool and should really make a batch. I believe the recipe we used has chocolate in it. Yours look perfect!
Mmmm, these are so cute and look delish!
My DBF’s aunt makes these every year as part of her christmas cookies. They are always the first to go. I never thought they were this easy..i think I will give them a try, but who knows if they will be as good as hers!
These look fantastic! Great recipe!
I have never made these! I need to change that and soon!
For a wedding present, my mom got me the Southern Living cookbook from the year I was born. I love seeing some of my favorite childhood recipe memories as I flip through the pages, but I also gasped at just how many recipes used shortening! These tassies look so adorable – and because they’re bite sized, I would probably eat about a dozen of them myself!
I have been craving pecan pie but this looks much easier! :) Thanks for sharing!
I love that they are called “tassies!”
Oh, my can you really quit with the new treats, now I really want to make these! and gotta love those old cookbooks one of my favs is my family’s 1943 edition of The Joy of Cooking that has now become mine! Yeah!
omg: i prepped dough for rugelach & i am switching gear!
this looks lovely…
so… this w/e i am having a BEB baking one!!
tomorrow i am re-creating your coffee- espresso cheesecake…
thanks for these wonderful recipes…can’t wait for next week!
I’d Really like to have that cheesecake recipe realize, this has been put up several years ago but maybe someone is still watching this site and has this recipe if so maybe you’d care to share again
i love cream cheese based dough… i don’t think i have ever had a pecan tassie but they are very cute!
Get ready for a real treat if you decide to try these. Much better than pecan pie! I’d actually like to try these ingredients in pie form, but I don’t have enough confidence. Anyone out there tried that?
We have made it into a pie before! DELICIOUS and so easy!
These look like heaven to me! They remind me of those little pecan pies I use to get the from vending machine when I was in junior high school. But yours looks a gazillion times better :)
These are a holiday favorite in my family, too – my dad eats them faster than my mom can make them. They are super-delicious, but not quick to make!
This is always around at Christmas during family get togethers. So good! Yours look perfect!
I have never tried making tassies before but I am certainly tempted now.
These are a staple at every family holiday (we call them nut cups). Pampered Chef sells a wooden tool that you can use to push the dough balls into the muffin tins so they are perfect cups.
Great tip about the tool from Pampered Chef. Getting the dough evenly into the muffin cups is kind of challenging. Thanks
You can be cheap and turn over a wide handled kitchen tool and use that. That’s what I have done for 25 yrs!!
I have two of the Pampered Chef tart tools and couldn’t find either one last year. I washed an empty 20 oz. Coke bottle and used it. It worked great!
Love this tool. It makes it much easier to keep the bottom of the mini pie curst flat.
I LOVE old cookbooks. I just found the New York Times Cookbook of 1961 at a used bookstore for $1.50, and it’s amazing to see how food trends and knowledge have changed–i. e. not EVERY dessert is made with gelatin. ;)
These look delicious. I love how they’re made in muffin cups–it definitely increases their pick-up-ability. What a great, sweet morsel!