Cinnamon-Pecan Tea-Cakes

It's cookie-swap time, y'all!

One of the many things I look forward to this time of the year is the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap--sort of a "secret Santa" for food bloggers.

Last year I sent each of three participating strangers a dozen Elf Cookies, my homage to Keebler's E.L. Fudge, and I received an assortment of delicious treats from three different food bloggers. This year, in keeping with my theme of childhood favorites, I had planned an homage to Nabisco's Nutter Butters--delicious, right?

But as I started to draft my recipe, I realized my heart just wasn't in it. Prepping for family to come for the holidays, keeping up with my rambunctious two-year old, and fighting off morning sickness (!!) made the massive undertaking of developing a sandwich-cookie copycat recipe seem a little more daunting than usual.

So with the nutter-butter concept on the back-burner, I racked my brain for a new idea. It would have to be something that could be packed and shipped, something that would keep well, and ideally, get even better after a few days.

Then it came to me: Tennessee Tea-Cakes!

The rules for the cookie swap stipulate that the blogger must choose a recipe he or she has never posted before--but it can be a variation of a previous post. Though I'd written about the fudge-textured confection of Southern legend in the past, I'd been wanting to do a variation on the mythical treat for quite a while (stopped only by the knowledge that I would eat them all within a two-hour period if allowed), so with the flavors of the season in mind (and with recipients' addresses in hand), Cinnamon-Pecan Tea-Cakes were born.

The addition of a cup of chopped pecans to the batter means your yield will be a little greater than a dozen. Resist the urge to fill the muffin liners all the way to the top--simply bake off the remaining batter after the first batch is done. The tea-cakes do not rise much, but filling them to the top requires them to cook for longer, and the texture won't be quite the same.

In the original post, I baked the tea-cakes in a 350-degree-Fahrenheit oven. Since that time, I have moved a couple of times, and my current oven produces slightly better tea-cakes at 375. Unfortunately, I have yet to follow the advice of every cooking authority EVER and purchase a removable oven thermometer, so I don't know which temp is the truest, or if the addition of the pecans somehow changes the ideal temperature. If possible, you may want to do a test batch to see which temp gets the best results for you.

The MOST important thing to remember with this recipe, however, is to let the tea-cakes cool completely before dusting with powdered sugar and to let them rest even longer before serving. Powdered sugar will get goopy on still-warm tea-cakes. Also, remember the texture of these tea-cakes should be akin to that of a fudgy brownie. Right out of the oven, the tea-cakes will seem underdone on top and overdone on the bottom, and the taste will be far less complex. The taste and texture achieve perfection after a day or two. Wait that long if you can, but definitely wait at least a few hours before digging in. You won't be sorry.

Cinnamon-Pecan Tea-Cakes
There is just a kiss of cinnamon in this recipe, letting the pecans, butter, and brown sugar really sing. 

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon or cassia (aka Saigon cinnamon)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
1 T pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar
4 oz (1/2 a standard package) Neufchatel or reduced-fat cream cheese, not whipped
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line a 12-cup standard-size muffin pan with muffin liners.

In a small bowl whisk together flour, pecans, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a medium-sized saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar over med-low heat, whisking to combine. Bring just to a boil, remove from heat, and add vanilla, vinegar, and cream cheese, whisking until smooth. Thoroughly whisk in the egg. Whisk in the dry ingredients. 

Fill the prepared muffin cups about half-full with batter, reserving remaining batter for second batch.
Bake at 375 degrees F for 16 minutes. Repeat with remaining batter. Cool completely. I cannot stress this enough.

These tea-cakes are going to come out of the oven smelling so good that your anticipation is likely to get the better of you. DO NOT GIVE IN.

When you first take the tea-cakes out of the oven, the bottom halves will seem too cake-y and the top halves will seem too gooey. They need to hang out for a while in order to settle into textural and flavorful perfection.

In fact, they'll be even better after a day or two. . . if you can manage to wait that long.

Once completely cool, dust with powdered sugar and store tightly covered at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Makes about 16 tea-cakes.

Thanks for reading! Here's to Being the Secret Ingredient in your life.

Elf Cookies: An homage to E.L. Fudge

The Setting: A cozy apartment on a chilly winter's day.

The Soundtrack: A marathon of HGTV's Love it or List it. And Oia's lovely warbles.

Steaming up the Oven: Cheese toast.

The Scenario: The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap and something sweet for Santa's little helpers....

If you follow this blog, you probably know by now I have a bit of an obsession with re-creating childhood treats.

I've never been much of a hard-cookie girl, always opting for Soft Batch over Chips Deluxe.

But if there were one crunchy supermarket cookie that could call me back to childhood as quickly as my treasured, squishy Oatmeal Creme Pie, it would be the firm and buttery Keebler sandwich cookie, shaped like an elf and filled with fudgy goodness--man, those things were good.

So when my recent attempt at Homemade Oreos came out better than I could have imagined, my very first thought was, "I wonder if I could tweak this recipe to make my own version of E.L. Fudge?!"

Aside from switching chocolate out of the cookies and into the filling, I had to get more flavor into the cookies themselves. To accomplish this, I brought a bit of buttermilk powder to the mix to accentuate the flavor of the butter and compliment the chocolate in the filling.

Since these cookies benefit from a richer buttery flavor, the neutral-flavored coconut oil was replaced with more butter, and a touch of malted milk powder was added to round out the flavor profile.

While I wasn't about to track down an elf-shaped cookie cutter for this endeavor, I also knew I wanted a shape quite distinct from the simple, circular Oreos--these are an E.L. Fudge remake, not Oreos gone blond. I used a heart-shaped cutter I had on hand, and I love its rippled edges. Try a two-inch, Christmas-tree-shaped cutter for a more festive alternative.

Elf Cookies
The name Elf Cookies is an homage to their inspiration, Keebler E. L. Fudge--and bonus, it's quite appropriate for the season. Santa always gets cookies for Christmas--why not leave a little something for his helpers?

~for the cookies~
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 T powdered buttermilk
3/4 tsp fine-grain salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
1 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

~for the filling~
10 T unsalted butter
pinch salt
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp malted milk powder
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled but still pourable

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Position a rack in the center of the oven.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, buttermilk powder, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the corn syrup and vanilla until smooth. Add the flour mixture, beating on low speed until fully incorporated. The dough should be crumbly but malleable.

Turn the dough out onto parchment paper, divide in half, and use wet hands to shape each half into a flat disk.

Working with one half (or disk) of the dough at a time, sandwich the dough between two baking-sheet-sized sheets of parchment paper and use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/4 inch. If the dough is too dry to roll out with out cracking, wet your hands and gently pat the cracked areas back together. Remove the top sheet of parchment and cut out hearts or the shape of your choice. I used a 2-inch-tall, ripple-edged, heart-shaped cookie cutter.

You can either carefully transfer the hearts to a parchment-lined baking sheet, or carefully peel up the excess dough, leaving the hearts where they are, and transfer that sheet of parchment to a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F for 8 minutes. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 3-5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Re-roll dough scraps and repeat, using fresh sheets of parchment as needed. Repeat whole process with remaining half of dough.

To prepare the filling, beat the cold butter along with a pinch of salt until smooth. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar and beat till well-mixed. The mixture should be thick, white, and almost dough-like. Beat in the melted chocolate.

Turn the filling out onto a sheet of parchment paper and divide in half.

Working with one half at a time, roll the filling out between two sheets of parchment until it is between 1/8- and 1/4-inch thick. Use the same cutter you used for the cookies to cut out shapes of the filling. If you feel like the filling is not stiff enough for easily cutting out shapes, place the rolled-out filling (still between the sheets of parchment) on a baking sheet and chill in the fridge for up to 20 minutes.

Place a filling shape on a cooled cookie, top with another cookie, and press very gently to adhere.

Repeat with remaining cookies and filling.

Makes about 40 sandwich cookies.

These cookies were part of the 2012 Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, which is a little like secret Santa for food bloggers. I shipped these cookies to three participating food bloggers, and I'll get to sample cookies from three different bloggers. This year, each participant paid a small sign-up fee, and all the money went to Cookies for Kids' Cancer. Not a bad way to celebrate the season!

Thanks for reading! Here's to Being the Secret Ingredient in your life.