The weather in Vancouver has turned cool and rainy again (boo), and I found myself craving fall flavours. I was looking at a few different ginger cookies, but this toffee pecan cookie won out. It’s from Tish Boyle’s The Good Cookie. Every recipe I’ve tried from this book has lived up to that name, including this one. It’s a problem – I want to eat them all.
The dough is really soft and sticky. Don’t even think about rolling these into balls by hand – definitely use a scoop or a couple of spoons. Not surprising given there are three eggs in this dough.
The inclusion to cookie dough ratio is really high – I was a bit worried they wouldn’t hold together, but the bits are so small and the dough is so soft that it wasn’t an issue. And the resulting cookie is loaded with bits of toffee and pecans. The best is around the edge where the toffee melted out of the cookie and got even more carmelized. Straight out of the oven, the toffee is soft and gooey. As it cools it firms back up, but doesn’t get entirely crisp again because it’s melted right into the cookie. The cookie itself stays soft and chewy with a crunch from the toasted pecans.
These cookies have an incredibly buttery flavour from all the toffee, and the toasted pecans are a perfect complement. Don’t skip toasting the pecans – that extra step really intensifies both their flavour and crunchiness.
As tempting as it was to keep these all to myself, I took them in to work and my coworkers are loving them. They’re a definite crowd-pleaser. One coworker has declared these her new favourite and another said they’re the best cookie so far. With most cookie recipes, I find myself thinking of variations or different inclusions to try next time. I can’t think of a single thing that could possibly make these better.
toffee pecan cookies
Adapted from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle. The recipe states it makes about 48, but I got over 90 cookies using a small scoop.
ingredients
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups English toffee bits, such as Skor or Heath
1-3/4 cups pecans, toasted and chopped
Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 or 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add the vanilla and beat again to incorporate. The book said the dough would appear curdled at this point, but for me it just seemed like a smooth cake batter.
Turn the mixer down to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing until just barely combined. Remove from the mixer and add in the toffee and nuts either with a spatula or by hand. I prefer to knead inclusions in by hand to ensure they're distributed evenly.
Using a small cookie dough scoop or a tablespoon, portion the dough onto the baking sheets about 2 inches apart to allow for spreading.
Bake for about 14-16 minutes, until lightly golden brown around the edges, rotating the baking sheet halfway through. Allow to cool on a wire rack for a couple minutes before removing from the pan. If you try to remove them too early, they'll fall apart because the toffee is so gooey, but if you wait too long, the toffee will harden and stick to the baking sheet. I learned both these things the hard way... Note: clean-up probably would have been a lot easier if I'd lined the baking sheets with parchment paper.
As I was reading this post, my husband came up behind me, and was like, “When are you making these, and can the answer be NOW?” {Note that it is after midnight right now.} All of which is to say, he’s super into these and I am too. I think I need to get that book–Tish Boyle is legit, I totally believe that all of her cookie recipes are winners!
These are AMAZING cookies. You should definitely make them. 😀
Hello! I LOVE this recipe. Made them twice but quite a while ago. The first time, they were perfect…the second time, too soft (but still tasty). Do you think I could cut back on one egg?
Hi Leah! I’m glad you’re liking this cookie. If they’re turning out too soft, my first thought would be the butter may have been too soft before using. It’s also possible you didn’t bake them quite long enough. You could try leaving out one of the eggs, but that will change the overall texture of the cookie. I can guess it will make it more crumbly, and it probably won’t spread as much during baking. I haven’t tried this recipe with just two eggs, though, so I can’t say for sure what will happen. Please let me know what you end up doing and how it works out 🙂
I live in San Francisco and want to make these cookies unfortunately can not find toffee bits
anywere. They only sell Heath or Skor bars with choclate and toffee together. Any thoughts
we’re to find them. Very frustrated.
Thanks
Sharon
Hi Sharon! I’ve always found them in the baking aisle of any major grocery store – usually with the chocolate chips. You could also get them from Amazon. Of course you could always just crush up some of the chocolate bars – adding chocolate to this cookie wouldn’t be a bad thing! Good luck 🙂
Can you recommend a grocery store
I’ve bought them at Safeway. I also googled and found a discussion about it and someone says that Albertson’s should carry them too. And they’re definitely on the Walmart site, so you might find them in-store as well.
You said you haven’t tried it with one egg.. When she said she might cut out one.. So did you mean to put 2 eggs in the recipe instead of 3?
Hi Samantha! Sorry, that was a mistake on my part. I meant to say “I haven’t tried it with one less egg”. I’ll edit my comment to clear up the confusion. The recipe is correct with 3 eggs. 🙂
Okay thank you. Sorry for the double post I didn’t think it worked the first time. Are they chewy cookies? I like chewy in the middle and crunchy on the outside. Also, I don’t have a paddle mixer, I only have a hand held power whisk thing, and a food processor
Is it supposed to be 2 or 3 eggs..I just read a comment where you make it sound like it’s supposed to be 2 not 3 like you said in the recipe
Okay thank you. Sorry for the double post I didn’t think it worked the first time. Are they chewy cookies? I like chewy in the middle and crunchy on the outside. Also, I don’t have a paddle mixer, I only have a hand held power whisk thing, and a food processor
This is such a great recipe. The first time I made them I actually used half the amount of toffee called for and replaced it with chocolate chips, this time around I am using M&M’s and the kids are super excited about them coming out of the oven. The chocolate chips were great so I thought a pop of color would be fun too. My family loved this recipe so thanks for sharing.
Hi Kelly – I was thinking the same thing about adding chocolate chips to these. I’ll bet they were fantastic! I’m going to have to remake them and do some experimenting 🙂
I made these today, very delicious – thank you !
When I mixed the egg into the butter, it did look curdled. I used organic valley grass fed butter, which was significantly harder at room temperature than kerrygold butter at room temperature, maybe that helped.
I used the heath bar with milk chocolate because that’s all they had. I tried picking out as many chocolate pieces as I could.
I toasted the pecans in the oven at 350 for 5 minutes before blending them to get them “chopped”.
I divided the recipe into thirds, because I wanted to try the recipe out.
Having a cookie scoop would’ve helped so much, it was tough using the 1 tbsp measure. It made 24 cookies with the tbsp measure and I baked at about 325-350 (my oven is kinda off) for 10minutes. I hope these hold up well over the next few days.
Maybe a 1/4 less pecan bits might taste better, not sure.
The cookies are kind of chewy from the toffee, with a slight crunch on the outside.
Wonderful recipe!! Thank you !
Hi Tiff
Wow, using the chocolate coated heath bar instead of just plain toffee bits sounds delicious. And I’m sure the reason the batter looked curdled is because of the colder butter. My old kitchen fluctuated so much in temperature (freezing in the winter, sweltering in the summer) I had no consistency in batter texture, but somehow they always ended up still edible. I’m glad you enjoyed them ?