Pecan Tassies

Pecan Tassies come to you from Martha Stewart's Cookie book. My dad took my family and I out to dinner tonight. Afterward, my little sister and I decided to conquer the kitchen together. (May I add that she is much better at conquering the kitchen than myself. Alas, maybe someday I will achieve these types of accomplishments. : ) )The decision to make this particular recipe was not easy. We skimmed through quite a few books and finally agreed upon these.

Ingredients

for the dough:
1/2 cup pecans
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese (4 ounces)
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 cup all-purpose flour

for the filling:
1 large egg
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temp
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Make dough: Process pecans in a food processor until finely ground (you should have about 1/2 cup). Put mascarpone and butter into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until well blended. Add flour, ground pecans, and salt; mix just until dough comes together. Alternatively stir together ingredients with a wooden spoon in a large bowl.

2. Roll dough into sixteen 1 inch balls; press into bottoms and up sides of cups of mini muffin tins.

3. Make filling: Whisk the egg, brown sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, butter and salt in a bowl. Stir in pecans. Spoon about 1 1/2 teaspoons filling into each muffin cup.

4. Bake until crust begins to turn golden, about 15 minutes. Let cool completely in tins on wire rack. Unmold. Tassies can be stored in single layers in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Andrea did more of the work on these little treats. We had to double the recipe because I made a butter error early on. The first two pans we placed the treats directly in the pan, molding them in the muffin tin itself. The Tassies looked really nice like this but were impossible to get out of the pans intact. The turned into a crumbly mess! So the last pan, we made the treats inside little muffin tins. This worked out much better!

I did not like the treat when we first took them out of the oven. The consistency of the dough just didn't taste right (not sweet enough?) and had a weird texture. I expected them to taste more like pecan pie and instead they had a unique taste to them. However, after refrigerating these treats overnight, they tasted quite good and a lot like pecan pie. It is funny to me how some desserts need some time to be awesome. The mascarpone cheese in the dough may be why these needed some refrigeration and cooling action though. Overall, I give the Pecan Tassies 3.5 out of 5 stars. Next time, I plan on modifying the recipe some to see if I can somehow make the dough a tad bit sweeter.