Pecan Pie Cookies Recipe - Celebration Generation (2024)

Published: Nov 23, 2022

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Today’s pecan pie cookie recipe is a favorite dessert of mine, and just might be the perfect cookie.

It brings the flavor of a traditional pecan pie into a soft cookie form, featuring a picture-perfect pecan filling.

It’s a relatively easy cookie recipe, with a fairly basic brown sugar cookie dough coming together in just minutes.

The nutty filling takes literal seconds to whip up, and just may be my favorite thing to ever top a cookie base with!

I’ve been making this recipe for almost 20 years now, and it’s inspired a few variations in that time:

Gluten Free Pecan Pie Cookies came along in .. 2012? Keto Pecan Pie Cookies followed in late 2023.

This year - a decade later - I came up with a fun twist on the original, with apples taking the place of the pecan pie filling:

Apple Pie Cookies.

THOSE buttery cookies looked and smelled too good, so I then had to come up with a combination of the two variations, with my Gluten Free Apple Pie Cookies.

SO good!

Anyway, today we’re here talking about the OG: Pecan Pie cookies.

These are fabulous cookies for your holiday dessert tray, cookie gift boxes, and bake sales. They definitely stand out, and are always a huge hit!

A Note on the Dough

Over the years, a few people have mentioned the dough being “runny” for them, while most people have no trouble at all.

I’m assuming it’s either a matter of too-warm butter, or not enough flour - or both.

The dough shouldn’t be really sticky after it’s mixed together. If yours is, just add a little extra flour.

Also, when in doubt?

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill it for 30 minutes or so, before rolling the dough into the balls and “pie shells”.

Pecan Pie Cookie Origin

As I originally posted, I was a bit conflicted over posting this Pecan Pie Cookies recipe.

Generally speaking, every recipe I post is something that I’ve either developed completely from scratch, or a family recipe that I’ve tweaked over the years.

Sometimes, it’ll be a “Frankenstein” recipe, utilizing bits and pieces of ingredients and techniques of several of my recipes.

This pecan pie cookies recipe?

At the point I posted it, I’d had it for years, but almost NO idea where it originally came from.

I’m pretty sure it came from one of the posters on a cake forum I used to frequent. A bunch of us used to swap cookie recipes to expand our holiday season dessert tray offerings in our own businesses.

... but who specifically gave it to me, or where SHE got it from?

No idea.

It looks like it’s since become a popular recipe out there on the interwebs, though!

Anyway - way back when - I asked for permission to use this recipe as a holiday offering through Celebration Generation... and the cookies always got rave reviews. (I know this much, at least, because I asked permission for any not-my-own recipes, when starting out!)

I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked for the recipe! What with the weather cooling down, I figure it’s cookie making season, and time to share it!

I don’t think I have contributed any major changes to the recipe (It’s been too long to remember!), but I like to add a couple pinches of spice to the filling, as noted.

Hope I’m not losing any baker’s cred by posting this, but I know it’ll make a bunch of people happy.

Plus, I think the photos are just too pretty to NOT share.

Ingredients

This is a fairly simple cookie recipe that uses super basic ingredients. You should have no trouble finding them in any grocery store.

You will need:

All purpose flour
Unsalted butter
Light Brown Sugar
Chopped Pecans
Heavy whipping cream
Large Egg
Pure Vanilla Extract
Baking Powder
Salt

The only real note I have for you is that you want the chopped pecans to be relatively small. If you have Pecan Halves or “pecan pieces” - which tend to be bigger chunks - just blitz them in a mini food processor a few times to get the chopped up.

Optional Spices

While optional - and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the original recipe - I like to add a few spices to the filling.

Specifically, a pinch each of:

Ground Cinnamon
Ground Cloves
Ground Ginger

How to Make Pecan Pie Cookies

The full recipe is in the recipe card at the end of this post, here is the pictorial walk through.

After fully cooling, cookies can be transferred to an airtight container - or large freezer bag - and stored for a week or so at room temperature.

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See Also

50 Festive Recipes Using Leftover Candy CanesTing A Lings No Bake Cookie Recipe - These Old CookbooksChewy Hermit Bars Recipe - Sizzling EatsThe Best Honeycomb Recipe (Easy honeycomb candy)

4.89 from 45 votes

Pecan Pie Cookies Recipe

These unique cookies are full of great pecan flavour, have a great texture, and are so pretty to look at. What more could you want in a cookie?

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time12 minutes mins

Total Time27 minutes mins

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American, Holiday

Servings: 20 Cookies

Calories: 222kcal

Author: Marie Porter

Equipment

• 2 Baking Sheets

• Parchment Paper

Ingredients

Cookies

• ¾ Cup Butter Room temperature
• 1 Cup Light Brown Sugar Firmly packed
• 1 Large Egg
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• ¼ teaspoon Salt

Filling

• 1 Cup Chopped Pecans
• ½ Cup Light Brown Sugar Firmly packed
• ¼ cup Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• Pinch Ginger, Cinnamon, and/or Cloves Optional*

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

• Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, continue beating until egg is fully incorporated and mixture is once again smooth and fluffy.

• Add baking powder, salt, and flour, continue beating until mixture is uniform, with everything incorporated. Set dough aside.

• In a separate mixing bowl, mix pecans and brown sugar with spices, if using. Add in heavy cream and vanilla, mix until well combined.

• Roll cookie dough into balls that are about 1.25″ in diameter, and place them on cookie sheets – leave about 2″ between the cookies.

• Gently use thumb to press down in the middle of each cookie, making an indentation. Roll thumb slightly to stretch the indentation out a little.

• Fill each indentation with about 1 teaspoon of pecan filling

• Bake for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned.

• Allow to cool on sheets for 5 minutes or so, before gently transferring to a rack to fully cool.

Video

Notes

* If you’re looking to make these exactly as we did for our cookie trays, I used a pinch each of all 3 spices in the filling

Nutrition

Calories: 222kcal | Carbohydrates: 27g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 12g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 31mg | Sodium: 94mg | Potassium: 65mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 16g | Vitamin A: 271IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 38mg | Iron: 1mg

Older Photos

(A note on the photos below: I redeveloped this recipe for inclusion in Beyond Flour, as a gluten-free Pecan Pie Cookie... and those are the photos now shown below.

They were WAY better photos than my older, original photography of this recipe, so I used them in this post with a disclaimer that they were the GF version, and looked exactly the same.

I finally got around to making and shooting a batch of the full-gluten cookies for the photos, and those are the photos throughout the rest of this post!

I’m leaving these ones here to keep Google happy!)

Older Photos

More All Recipes

Comments

1. Adrienne Skaggs

   March 27, 2012 at 9:53 am

   Oh. My. Gawd!! These look so darn yummy I can't stand it! I'll have to make them for the next business pot luck just so I can have some. Thanks for posting.

   Reply

2. Deborrah

   March 28, 2012 at 3:55 pm

   I was so excited to see this recipe on Pinterest. My husband loves pecan pie. I attempted to make the cookies but found the dough just ran when baking. I thought it looked too wet (like it needed more flour) after mixing it, but since it was my first time making it, decided to follow the recipe. Any suggestions?

   Reply

   • admin

     March 28, 2012 at 4:05 pm

     Hi Deborrah.

     Hrm.. no idea what to suggest, I've never had that happen before, or heard from anyone who has. After the flour is mixed in, it should definitely be dry enough to roll balls from - if it happens again, I'd add more flour.

     Reply

   • Nancy Davis

     August 26, 2012 at 2:10 pm

     Make sure the butter for the dough is room temperature, and NOT melted. I made this mistake years ago, when making chocolate chip cookes, and they turned out like pancakes, not cookies! lol

     Reply

   • Mary

     October 23, 2012 at 12:34 pm

     I made these today! I had some problems with rolling the dough into balls (it was too sticky), so I tried two methods to combat the problem:

     1. Half of the dough I used two spoons to scoop the ball into ball shapes, then refrigerated the dough so it would tighten up a bit. Then I used the back of the teaspoon, dipped in flour to make the dent in the middle. They turned out well!

     2. To the half of the dough I had left I added 1/3 cup of flour, which made the dough more manageable. I still couldn't roll the dough, so I used the spoons again. This did make the cookies a little drier.

     In the end, they were yummy! Taste like a homemade pecan sandy mixed with pecan pie!

     Reply

   • Lois

     November 30, 2012 at 2:17 pm

     Possibly Cut the butter down from 3/4 cup to 3/4 stick. To much butter thins the dough as it cooks.

     Reply

   • Kelly

     December 24, 2013 at 1:42 pm

     I think your issue is definitely the flour. Measuring flour by volume (ie cups) isn't ideal because it all depends how much you pack it into the cups. However since most recipes don't give you the weight you need to feel it out on your own. My suggestion would be to make the dough, then add flour until it is ok to work with (personally I like my cookies very flour-y). I do this with chocolate chip cookies too. Here is a link that helped me a lot with my cookies http://theperfectchocolatechipcookie.com/instruct.php about half way down the page is says "problems" and shows cookies that are messed up and their solutions. Hope that helps!

     Reply

3. Tifany

   April 13, 2012 at 2:15 pm

   
   I made these cookies a couple of weeks ago for the first time -- my husband informed me I never needed to make pecan pie again. 😉 I am now on my third round of making these cookies, this time for a bake sale benefiting a local family whose home burned down. What a DELICIOUS recipe. Thanks for sharing!

   Reply

4. Steph

   May 07, 2012 at 12:37 pm

   I saw these on Pinterest and just made these today, and I must say that they are fabulous! The only change I made was to add 1/2 tsp. salt to the dough. I was a little skeptical and didn't think they would taste like pecan pie, but holy smokes they do! Thanks for the recipe!

   Reply

   See Also

   Cream Wafer Sandwich Cookie Recipe - BEST Christmas Cookie

5. Katrina

   May 31, 2012 at 3:15 pm

   I had the same problem as Deborrah 🙁 Followed the recipe exactly as well, no problem rolling the dough into balls.

   Reply

6. RuthAnn

   June 02, 2012 at 10:43 pm

   Can these be made a few days ahead?

   Reply

   • Marie Porter

     June 04, 2012 at 7:39 am

     Definitely, but they may not last 🙂

     Reply

7. Linda Brown

   July 28, 2012 at 7:35 pm

   
   OMG ... Just pulled these out of the oven! Heavenly and you need a tall glass of milk with just one cookie. But of course, I did not stop with one!!!!!

   Reply

8. Penny Wolf

   August 02, 2012 at 6:24 am

   After reading the posts and before I make this recipe I would like to know the egg size used.
   Perhaps that made a softer dough.

   Reply

   • Marie Porter

     August 02, 2012 at 2:27 pm

     Large

     Reply

9. Nancy Davis

   August 26, 2012 at 2:02 pm

   These sound so good, I am going to double the recipe when I make them. 20 cookies does not seem like enough. 🙂 Thank you so much for the recipe!

   Reply

10. Kris

    September 05, 2012 at 9:49 pm

    The first time I made these following the recipe minus the spices, the cookies spread quite a bit but were super yummy. I made them again today, and chilled the dough for about 10 minutes and they came out like the picture. The only problem was that the cookies were a little more like a shortbread and a little bit dry. Conclusion, loose dough makes loose cookies that are crispy, cold dough makes firm cookies that a a little dry

    Reply

11. Peggy Saucier

    September 08, 2012 at 7:14 pm

    Would like to try these.

    Reply

12. Kristina

    September 27, 2012 at 4:42 pm

    
    These turned out perfect and delicious! I did chill the dough a little but found then they cracked more when I made the thumbprint. Excellent recipe!

    Reply

13. Sara T

    October 13, 2012 at 1:25 am

    Are you suppose to add cream to the dough too? That's the very first thing it says to add (cream butter and sugar for the dough) ... Maybe that's why others cookies are runny?

    Reply

    • Lynda H

      October 21, 2012 at 1:17 pm

      no Sara by creaming butter they mean to mix it well do not add cream to dough just filling

      Reply

14. Lynda H

    October 21, 2012 at 1:15 pm

    
    made these today soooo good going to serve them to family later today if I can keep my hand out of cookie jar doubled the recipe worked perfect was thinking they would also be yummy with dab of pumpkin pie filling and cream cheese icing

    Reply

15. Chase

    November 12, 2012 at 3:52 pm

    if short on time could a premade sugar cookie or snickerdoodle cookie dough be used instead?

    Reply

16. Cassidy

    November 15, 2012 at 2:05 pm

    Made these for the first time today thinking I would take a batch to my son's class at school for their Thanksgiving feast. (Easier and less messy than pecan pie!) They are delicious! Fairly easy to make, and I had all the ingredients on hand. I too had the problem with the dough being super sticky, which made the cookies spread a LOT in the oven. I did not melt the butter. Just left it out on the counter for an hour or so this morning. Followed the directions to a T as well. Next time, I will omit the baking powder and add more flour until the dough seems firmer. I will definitely make them again because they are really yummy!

    Reply

17. Lana

    November 20, 2012 at 7:47 am

    I really want to make these, they look delicious. One question though, all purpose flour or self-rising flour??

    Reply

    • Marie Porter

      November 20, 2012 at 8:28 am

      All purpose!

      Reply

18. AlisonKF

    November 24, 2012 at 10:14 pm

    In the listing of ingredients, I presume the first listing is the cookie part and the second half the topping...is there really a cup of brown sugar in the dough? Only wondering because it doesn't mention mixing it in, in the directions section, except for the topping with the pecans....

    Reply

19. AlisonKF

    November 24, 2012 at 10:17 pm

    Never mind, I must be tired, lol.

    Reply

20. Amber

    December 11, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    These cookies are a HUGE hit among my friends/family. No problems whatsoever!

    Reply

21. Audrey

    December 11, 2012 at 3:42 pm

    My first batch is out of the oven and they look and smell amazing. Recipe was for 20 cookies, but I got 42 good sized cookies from this recipe. If you substitute dark brown sugar in the dough as I did, you will have a darker cookie than the photo. But, oh yum!

    Reply

22. Bev

    December 16, 2012 at 7:37 pm

    
    Found from pinterest! These turned out great for me! Taking them to a work Christmas party tomorrow! They are really good should be a crowd pleaser!!

    Reply

    • Karla

      December 28, 2012 at 5:02 pm

      
      I got quite a few more than 20 out of my batch. More than than double that and I stuck right to the recipe.. I found this incredibly easy. 5 *****!!

      Reply

23. funkyraspberryripple

    February 26, 2013 at 3:52 pm

    Just a thought for those that are having trouble with a 'runny' dough, sometimes it can make a huge difference where abouts in the oven you place the baking tray. I always cook one tray at a time in the middle of the oven, allowing the air to circulate the tray on both sides.

    Reply

24. Heather Arner

    March 24, 2013 at 3:40 pm

    
    Made them, no problems, turned out great. Everyone raved !

    Reply

25. Lauren

    April 04, 2013 at 4:23 pm

    Made these this evening and got 26 mid-sized cookies. Did not have any problems with the dough. I made sure when creaming the butter and sugar, that it was fluffy, and then used my hand mixer again to combine the final ingredients until light and fluffy. The egg acts as a binding agent (I think) so it really needs to be beaten in good! Good flavor, though I wish the filling was a bit richer. Will play around with this recipe!

    Reply

26. KG

    July 06, 2013 at 1:39 pm

    I bake all the time but my cookies did not come out like the picture....I will try to refrigerate the dough if I try them again.

    Reply

27. Al

    August 05, 2013 at 6:38 pm

    Recipe needs salt. Also, they spread less if chilled after forming the little cups. Other than that, these are great. Thanks for sharing.

    Reply

28. Victoria

    September 29, 2013 at 11:41 am

    
    I just made these and they were amazing!!!!! I didnt have any problems with my dough and they formed perfectly! Loved them!

    Reply

29. Carol Meyer

    October 20, 2013 at 12:00 pm

    
    Thank you so much for this recipe, will add this to my Christmas cookies.

    Reply

30. Andi May

    December 03, 2013 at 3:19 pm

    
    I placed a whole pecan on top of the cookies after I added the chopped pecan/spice mix (my family LOVES pecans). It made for a beautiful presentation!

    Reply

31. Sandy

    December 07, 2013 at 2:30 pm

    
    I just made these today and....OMG! They are wonderful!!!!! Thank you!

    Reply

32. Pam

    December 13, 2013 at 3:54 pm

    How long will these cookies last for? Since there's cream in the filling do they need to be refrigerated?

    Reply

    • Marie Porter

      December 16, 2013 at 11:06 am

      They don't last long, but it's not because of the cream! (No need to refrigerate).

      Honestly, I'm not sure, We've never had a batch hang around for more than a couple of days, so it's been hard to test that.

      Reply

33. Brandie

    November 27, 2014 at 7:37 am

    
    Made these for thanksgiving instead of my usual pecan pie and they are amazing. Only thing
    I did differently was mix about 1/4 cup chopped pecans into the dough (saw this in another recipe) and they turned out great. I chilled the dough while making the filling and used a cookie scoop to form the balls. Thanks for sharing this recipe!

    Reply

34. Kristyn

    November 29, 2014 at 3:05 pm

    
    My 4 year old and I just finished baking a double batch of these. They are pretty darn good! I will definitely make these again, and will add a pinch of salt to the dough, as suggested by someone else. My son was VERY generous with the cinnamon (which he put in both the dough and the filling) and we did not add the other spices. We love cinnamon, so they are to our liking. Easy, fun for a 4 year old, and delicious. Thanks for posting!

    Reply

35. Autumn Brooke

    September 22, 2021 at 10:29 pm

    This looks phenomenal! I'm pinning to make this on Thanksgiving.

    Reply

36. Suzanne Oamil

    December 13, 2022 at 10:21 pm

    
    My bf's new favorite cookie! Even better than Pecan pie he says!! Brought some in to work and they were a hit! I made 4 batches in 2 days! I did add a little maple extract ( aling with the vanilla) to the topping!

    Reply

37. Maryland Girl

    December 15, 2022 at 9:13 pm

    I just made a double batch. Husband and I loved them! I am not an expert baker, but I did not have trouble rolling the balls.
    I had some leftover filling, so I l scooped it onto the parchment paper to bake, and yum! It’s like candy!

    Reply

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