Tis the season: pecan potato chip cookies

Every year, Annalena prepares a bounty of cookies to send to her amici everywhere. Indeed, her cookie tins have been to places where she has never been, and probably never will be. Some of those cookies are made from time to time, some are made once and never make an appearance again, and some are , as we would say "repeat offenders": they come back every year. Some do so, because people love them (like the toffee chocolate crunch, which I could make in ten pound lots, and not make enough), and some come back, because Annalena loves them herself (if no one else likes my cranberry orange coins, I do not care). There are others that come back because while they are never mentioned as anyone's favorite, when they are not there, someone notices, and also... they are easy.... or unusual... or both.

Ninety million years ago, when the food network actually had programs on which taught you to cook, one of Annalena's favorite shows was "Two Hot Tamales," with Susan Feniger, and Mary Sue Milligen. Ms. Feniger is much more in the forefront these days, and Annalena does indeed adore her. She also adores Ms. Milligen, however, who is more the "Guyman" in the pairing, in the way Annalena is the Ms. Feniger.

On one of the shows, Ms. Milligen demonstrated a potato chip cookie, which she said was one her mom always made. "Oh, is that not quaint?" the younger Annalena thought to herself. Well, in 2004, one of Annalena's cooking magazines published a recipe for a potato chip cookie. Never one to ignore something that uses fried chips, Annalena did use it. And it's a great cookie. It's easy too. I am going to give you a recipe that will make about 100 of them. You could very easily cut the recipe in half. In fact, half the recipe is what was originally published, and was said to make 30 cookies. Those must have been pretty large. These are still substantial. A couple with a cup of coffee is plenty. Ready? Ok, here we go.

Leave a pound of unsalted butter out, overnight, to get nice and soft. Then measure out a cup of granulated sugar, and have a half cup ready at your side. You will also need two teaspoons of good vanilla extract (no phony stuff, please), 4 cups of flower, a cup of pecans, that you either chop or run through the food processor, and....

A cup of crushed potato chips. Annalena does this in the food processor after she does the pecans. You can put them in a bag and bash them with a rolling pin, if you like. But please don't do them ahead of time (they stale badly), and please don't refrigerate them (they pick up water and get soggy).

Now, preheat your oven to 350 and start lining baking sheets with parchment paper.

You can do this by hand, but it's much easier to do it in a stand mixer. Cream the butter for about five minutes, at low medium, adding the sugar after two. The stuff will rise up in the bowl, and stop it every now and then to push it down (stop the timer when you do this). After you have combined the two, lower the speed on the mixer and add the vanilla, the flour, the nuts, and the chips and then combine them until you have an even mass.

Pick up small amounts and roll them into balls, no more than about 3/4 of an inch in diameter, and put them onto cookie sheets. These do not spread much, so you can probably get 20-25 on a sheet.

Here's the part Annalena likes the best. Take the paper from a stick of butter, and rub it over the bottom of a glass. Now dip that into the extra sugar, and press it down on each cookie. You will have to re-do the butter and sugar bit, but that's ok, it won't take you long.

When you've done two sheets (you will probably be doing four), get them itno the oven, and bake for 6 minutes. Then, protect your hand, and reverse the cookie sheets, top to bottom, and front to back. Bake for another six minutes or so. You may want or need another minute or two, to make them as dark and as firm as you like (this is not a crispy cookie. It is a flaky cookie).

And know what? You are DONE. You have 100 or so really wonderful, fun cookies, and yes, you CAN taste the crunch of the potato chip (although you will be hard pressed to say what it is if you don't know it).


Annalena shall be publishing at least a few of her holiday cookie recipes as we rush through what she calls the combined "sprint/marathon" of holiday cooking, and the season. Bear with it, ragazzi, it will all be over soon, and while you will need a month or so to recover, you will do it all again, because you love it. I know. Because I do, too.