Bourbon Pecan Oatmeal Cookies are a buttery cookie that will keep their shape due to just a bit of butter flavored shortening. A delicious cookie with a hint of bourbon.
While taking my cooking class from Judy in Italy a few weeks ago, she mentioned Shirley O. Corrher’s cook books as ones she recommends for the great explanations and techniques. So after previewing them, I ordered both BakeWise and CookWise. I haven’t had a chance to pour over them yet but wanted to try a technique she uses for cookies. She recommends that you add a small amount of butter flavored shortening along with some butter. Butter snob that I am, this sounded like sacrilege to me, but I’m open to new ideas, so decided to try her method in these wonderful oatmeal cookies.
I have several great oatmeal cookie recipes, so didn’t feel that I needed another one in my repertoire, but I do like bourbon so I gave this one a try. The butter flavored shortening is added to the butter and is supposed to keep the cookies from spreading. I hate to admit it but this worked. Another suggestion she has is after toasting nuts, to add a little butter and salt to the nuts while they are still hot. I’m not sure why she suggests this but I did it. (my guess is that she explains it someplace else in the book) This does make the nuts taste even yummier so I was feeling better about replacing some of the butter in the cookies with shortening after that.
These cookies were fabulous! My new favorite. I did cut the bourbon down from two tablespoons to one and increased the vanilla by the same amount. If you are a bourbon fan than I would use two tablespoons of bourbon. I like a hint of bourbon but any more than that and it seems to overwhelm. Plus if you are making these for kids, the bourbon flavor may be strong for some. The texture was perfect along with the rich flavors from the toasted nuts, vanilla and bourbon.
I can’t wait to spend more time with these books learning some helpful tips for improving my baking and cooking. I will keep you posted on other recipes that I try, but based on this one alone, it was worth the money.
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