My mother made at least 15 different kinds of cookie at Christmas. These are my favorite. This is an old recipe. As she got older, she didn’t have enough energy to roll the dough into these thin, crispy cookies, so she stopped making them. The dough reminds me of a shortbread dough – it is quite hard to mix it together and roll it out. They do take some energy and are not for the faint of heart, but they are the most wonderful cookie!
Mom’s Sand Tarts
Mom's Sand Tarts
Equipment
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 cookie sheet
- 1 parchment paper optional. You can use a flat, floured surface
- 1 cookie cutter optional. You can just cut into diamond shapes if you don't have one
Ingredients
- ¼ lb butter softened. If you buy your butter in 1 pound boxes where each stick is 1/2 c, it is one stick of butter
- 1 c sugar
- 1 egg
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 2 c flour
- 1 egg white
- 1 tsp pecan pieces
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Mix together the sugar, butter and egg, then add in the flour and baking powder. The egg whites, pecan pieces and cinnamon will be used just before baking the cookies. I use my hands to mix the dough. Dough will be thick and hard to mix. It is much like a shortbread dough. It doesn’t make a dough ball easily, you have to use your hands to get parts of it to stick together
- Roll thin and cut out cookie. Roll from the middle out to the edges. The thinner the better, as thin as you can get them, if you can get to 1/16”, that is great. Just do a little at a time making sure your surface and rolling pin are coated in flour. I “measure” thickness with my hand. If I put my hand on the dough and it feels like there is dough there, I keep rolling. When it feels thin, then cut out the cookie and transfer to a cookie sheet with parchment paper on it. There will be left over dough from the cut out. Just grab it and combine it again with a little more dough from the bowl. When the dough gets too floury to roll out, then stop.
- When your cookie sheet is full, (the cookies do not expand at all when baking), dip your finger in the egg white, and then use it to coat the middle of the cookie with it – not the whole cookie. Sprinkle with just a touch of cinnamon where the egg white is. Put a pecan piece in the middle.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes, or until the edges start turning golden brown.