Caramel Creams

Pecan shortbreads with browned butter filling

It’s cookie-palooza here at EGO HQ. Trying to get out as many fab recipes for your cookie swap as I can, so let’s hop right in today.

Updates

Credit: Photo: Alex Lepe; Food Styling: Jason Schrieber

Look ma! I’m in The Kitchn!
The Kitchn reached out in October asking if easygayoven would provide a recipe for their annual holiday cookie package. It’s been a goal of mine to be in it one year, but I never pitched myself, so when they asked I was so excited to say yes. It’s exciting to see my name alongside some people I love in this year’s and years prior. For 2024, I developed a recipe for Hot Cocoa Marshmallow Sandwiches that may look like these, but they’re different. Number 1, the cookies are soft, cake-y almost. Melt in your mouth. Number 2, for those of you who don’t want to deal with gelatin, there’s none in this recipe— just a pillowy Italian meringue. As I say in the recipe intro, they’re giving Oreo Cake-ster.

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Recommendations

📰 Article: “A Giant of Journalism Gets Half its Budget from the U.S. Government”
I’ll be honest, I pay some attention to the world of media and global news and this one almost went over my head. One of the authors Ryan Grim has been a trusted voice for me online this year re: Israel, Palestine and U.S. politics.

A Giant of Journalism Gets Half its Budget From the U.S. Government

This Week’s (Other) Recipe

An important chapter of the easygayoven Lore is Cookie Day. Every December, while I was growing up in Ohio, my family would haul it to my Aunt Cindy’s house and make cookies — hundreds of them. By the end of the day, the dining room table would be completely obscured beneath big round trays piled high with cookies, ready to be sent out to other families. Unsurprisingly, I was the child who reveled a little too much in decorating the gingerbread and sugar cookie cutouts, slowing down the whole operation. We were there to do a job!

The cookies I never helped with, however, were these: Caramel Creams. By the time my sister and mom and I rolled in, my Aunt Cindy and my Aunt Mary had usually already been up since the early morning working on these. (Not because they’re difficult; they’re easy! There was just a lot to do!) Crisp, buttery pecan shortbreads sandwiching a brown butter buttercream. That’s it! But their simplicity belies their depth and almost… unctuousness. These were the cookies that every adult wanted with their coffee — and definitely the ones I reached for first when we took our tray home.

Last Christmas, I asked Cindy if she could track down the recipe for me to feature on easygayoven. She sent me a picture of the original, laminated recipe, which you can see below. It comes from Barbara Youngers of Kingman, Kansas, and appeared in Best of Country Cookies (1999), which was a subscriber-submission cookbook from Taste of Home. There are a few recipes floating around online that are similar to this one, the closest being this one, but that page looks relatively new and there’s no information about where they sourced it. Other than that, a recipe from 100 Prize-Winning Grand National Recipes from Pillsbury’s 6th Grand National $100,000 Recipe and Baking Contest (1955) comes sort of close but not really. Regardless, this is probably one of those recipes that has been around in one form or another for a long time. Thank you to Barbara for this special family heirloom!

Cookie Day trays; My early work; The OG recipe

I have made a few changes: I’m upping the salt level because that’s more common in desserts now and that’s my personal preference. Also, I usually bake with unsalted butter and this recipe doesn’t specify whether or not to use salted. I’m also increasing the amount of chopped pecans because I felt like there weren’t enough to get the flavor and bite. Otherwise I’ve just fleshed out the directions for clarity, added some good baking practices, and edited it to fit the EGO recipe style.

Ideally, I want these to be a two-bite cookie. I remember them being smaller and more manageable (meaning you could eat two). So maybe next time I would make the logs of dough longer and thinner to get more cookies, maybe about 96 total, totaling…. 48 sandwiches. I didn’t go to school for math. I only got about 3 dozen sandwiches, which is true to the recipe! For now, I’ll just leave it alone.

You certainly don’t have to use a piping bag to fill the sandwiches, but it makes the filling process go much faster and you get a neater finished product.

Caramel Creams

Makes about 3 dozen sandwiches

Recipe adapted from Barbara Youngers

Ingredients

Cookies

• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature (227 grams)

• 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar (143 grams)

• 3/4 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (1/2 teaspoon if using Morton’s table salt)

• 2 large egg yolks

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour ( 337 grams)

• 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (about 2 ounces)

Filling

• 2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter (35 grams)

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (170 grams)

• Pinch of salt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 to 3 tablespoons cream, milk or half & half

Directions

1. Make the cookies. In a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter, brown sugar and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

2. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla just until combined.

3. Add the flour and pecans to the creamed mixture and beat just until the remaining streaks of flour disappear, ensuring to scrape the bowl.

4. Divide the dough in half and place each half on a long sheet of plastic wrap. Shape both halves into 12-inch rolls. Wrap each tightly in the plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours until firm.

5. Preheat the oven to 350°F and set two oven racks to divide the oven into thirds. Line two half-sheet trays with parchment paper or silicone mats. Unwrap and cut one log into 1/4-inch slices. Place 20 cookies, about an inch apart, on each sheet.

6. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes or until golden brown, switching the tray’s places in the oven and rotating them front to back halfway through.

7. Allow cookies to cool on their trays for 2 to 3 minutes then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

8. Make the filling. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Cook the butter, stirring and scraping the bottom occasionally, until it begins to bubble and pop. Continue cooking until the butter foams and you can see brown flecks swimming in the butter when you stir. You’ll know it’s done browning when you no longer hear bubbling and popping — as that’s when all the water has been cooked off.

9. Remove butter from the heat and add powdered sugar, vanilla and two tablespoons of cream. Stir until smooth. Add the remaining cream if needed to achieve a spreading consistency.

10. Spread or pipe on the bottoms of half of the cookies. Top with remaining cookies.