Pecan Sandies by Keebler which are commonly available in every supermarket in North America is a delicious melt in the mouth cookie with nutty pecans in it and an amazing texture. My mom-in-law is a big fan of these cookies and she always tries to look for them in every store in Singapore but has never been able to find it. One day I stumbled upon this recipe for Pecan Sandies on the allrecipes website . It had wonderful reviews and I wanted to try them out because I knew that no matter how they turned out, I had one customer who loved nuts enough to still try these out and appreciate the effort put into making them! So I decided to make a batch of these.

Once my son found out that there were cookies being made in the house which did not have chocolate chips in them, he was visibly upset. So I made a last minute decision to make pecan cookies out of half the batter and use the rest for making chocolate chip cookies. Of course I love to keep the people in my home excited about what is cooking in the kitchen and would never want anyone to get upset because they cannot get what they like.

The pecan cookies turned out delicious. Just like the ones you find in that pack in the supermarket! And my kids and niece loved the chocolate chip cookies although I would not make chocolate chip cookies with this batter. I am partial to the soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies and the next time will use the entire batch to make pecan cookies and keep the kids in my life happy with the chocolate chip cookies that I like as much as they do.

I did make some slight modifications to the original recipe. I substituted the margarine for butter and increased the vanilla extract to 2 tsps. I baked some after rolling the dough balls in white sugar and some without. I also experimented a fair bit with different temperature settings of the oven. That is why all my cookies did not look the same - but they all tasted good and that is what matters in the end!

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup white sugar

1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups chopped pecans

1/2 cup white sugar for decoration

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

2. In a mixer, cream together the butter, vegetable oil, 1 cup white sugar and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in the pecans. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and roll each ball in remaining white sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.

3. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are golden. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.