This buttery, chewy pecan cookie recipe is a copycat version of your favorite mall cookie shop: Great American Cookie Company Chewy Pecan Supreme Cookies!
I partnered with Imperial Sugar on this recipe. Click here for the FULL RECIPE.
These pecan cookies are incredibly underrated. I mean, no chocolate, no frosting, no sprinkles…they would be an easy one to pass over on a cookie platter. I totally understand. I mean, all I see here is a a brown cookie with …. nuts? No thanks, pass me the whoopie pie. Turns out, that is exactly the wrong move. These chewy, sweet butter pecan cookies with crispy edges and soft centers are the type of cookie that keep me coming back for “just one more”. A classic is a classic for a reason, and these taste like pure comfort!
A Great American Cookie Company Copycat Recipe!
TheseCopycat Great American Cookie Company Chewy Pecan Cookies are an absolute dream! I found many versions of the recipe when I was doing my cookie research and came up with a version that holds true to the original, while also incorporating a few of my own tweaks. What I landed on is a delicious and easy cookie recipe with the flavor as close to the original as I could get!
Pecan Cookie Ingredients:
For the full recipe and ingredient like CLICK HERE
Room temperature butter.I prefer using salted butter in this recipe because there is no additional salt added, except in the self rising flour. You can absolutely use unsalted if you are salt-sensitive, or watching your sodium intake.
Light brown sugar
Vanilla extract
Large eggs
Crushed corn flakes.You will want to finely crush the corn flakes, with no large pieces. The corn flakes add texture to the cookie, so don’t crush them into a dust, but you don’t really want to “see” the flakes.
Self-rising flour. I don’t normally bake cookies with self-rising flour, but as I did research on this recipe, all the versions that I came across used self-rising. And since this is essentially a “copycat” cookie recipe, I wanted to keep the integrity of the recipe intact.
Chopped pecans. You can buy the pre-chopped pecans at the supermarket, but I would give them another chop. You don’t want very large pieces of pecans in the cookie.
Why Self Rising Flour?
As I stated above, this is a copycat cookie from the Great American Cookie Company. In all the research I did for the recipe, every version I saw included self-rising flour instead of all purpose. I wanted my interpretation to be as authentic as possible, so I chose to use self-rising flour as well. However, you can absolutely sub out all purpose flour for the self rising. Here are two options how:
1 cup all purpose flour + 1/2 teaspoon baking soda + 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup all purpose flour + 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder + 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla together for 2 minutes on medium speed, creaming until pale in color and fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Alternately you can do with this a hand mixer and a large bowl.
Turn the mixer to low and add in the corn flakes and flour until just combined.
Add in the pecans and mix until evenly incorporated.
Using a medium (2- tablespoon) sized cookie scoop, portion the dough out and place onto the lined baking pan 3- inches apart. The cookies will spread while baking. If you don’t have a cookie scoop, roll into balls and place on the baking sheet. You don’t need to chill the dough, but you can if you would like to!
Bake for 9 – 11 minutes, until the edges are golden and the tops are set.
Allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Equipment Needed:
No special equipment is needed for this recipe, here’s what you will need:
Baking Sheet
Parchment Paper
Stand Mixer
Paddle Attachment
Rubber Spatula
Cutting board and Chefs Knife to chop the pecans
Blender or Food Processor to crush the corn flakes.
These cookies are very straightforward, and you should have great success, but here are a few tips to make them perfect:
Using a cookie scoop is key to ensure all the cookies are the same size. This is great for aesthetics, but also ensures even baking.
Taking cookie size to the next level, you can use a food scale to weigh your dough out when portioning it for the cookies. 45 grams of dough is what I would recommend for each cookie.
If you don’t have a cookie scoop, roll the dough into balls and place on the baking sheet. This helps as they bake and spread to stay in that perfect circular shape.
As soon as they come out of the oven you can use a spatula to shape the cookies back into perfect circles if they appear misshapen.
Can You Freeze These Cookies?
Yes absolutely! You can either freeze the cookies are they are baked, or you can freeze the dough before baking. Check out my fill post onhow to freeze cookie dough. It will change your life!
More Pecan Recipes:
My MEGA popularPecan Pie Recipe! It’s always a hit!
If you enjoy your cookies soft and chewy, chances are likely the recipe contains a common ingredient that serves a very specific purpose. No, it's not granulated sugar, nor the butter. It's not the egg, all-purpose flour, or even the vanilla extract. The simple, yet oh-so-necessary component is cornstarch.
Salted butter, softened – I prefer salted butter but you can also use unsalted and add an extra pinch of salt to the dough. Brown sugar – Just brown sugar because we will get the 'granulated sugar' flavor from the corn syrup. Corn syrup – The corn syrup is what makes these cookies CHEWY FOR DAYS.
Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies. Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie. An extra egg yolk increases chewiness. Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness.
Using too much flour will make your cookies too cakey, so try reducing the flour amount by two tablespoons. Avoid using cake flour instead; try a mix of all-purpose flour and bread flour for a more dense and chewy texture.
Well, the long and short answer to chewy cookies is it's all about the moisture content. Cookies that are dense and chewy incorporate more moisture into the batter. This can be achieved by making substitutions with wet and dry ingredients, or even just changing the way you incorporate certain ingredients.
Putting a slice of fresh white bread in the container with the cookies will help the cookies stay soft: fresh bread is moist, and that slice will give up its moisture for the greater good: keeping the cookies from drying out. We recommend white bread so that no flavor is transferred to the cookies.
By switching up the technique, I omitted all the extra air that gets incorporated into the dough during creaming, and as a result, the cookies made with melted butter were significantly chewier and fudgier than those made with creamed butter.
Baking soda is typically used for chewy cookies, while baking powder is generally used for light and airy cookies. Since baking powder is comprised of a number of ingredients (baking soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, etc.), using it instead of pure baking soda will affect the taste of your cookies.
Bread flour contains a higher protein content (around 12-14%), leading to more gluten development. This makes it ideal for bakers seeking a chewier texture in their cookies. The extra gluten can help retain gas and moisture, producing a denser and chewier result.
A cookie made with extra egg yolk (or, in this case, only egg yolk), will be lighter and chewier than a cookie made with whole eggs. The cookies will also have a richer flavor thanks to the added fat in egg yolk.
So, when you mix corn syrup into your cookie batter, all of that moisture will make and keep your baked cookies deliciously tender. The texture of cookies benefits from corn syrup as well. As you combine your ingredients to make your cookie batter, corn syrup will pull some of the surrounding air into your batter.
There's an ingredient that will make your cookies extra flexible and soft. It's corn syrup. That's it! That, my friend, is the secret ingredient to the best SOFTEST chocolate chip cookies.
More protein means more chew because and increase in protein directly correlates to an increase in gluten development (aka chew). For most cookie recipes you can swap the all-purpose flour out in favor of bread flour at a 1:1 ratio by weight (always by weight!).
Fat is a very important ingredient in cookies – it tenderizes, crisps and browns, adds color and a wonderful flavor that is impossible to duplicate. Butter, our fat of choice, ensures good baking results and adds the most desirable taste, texture and appearance.
How do you store cookies to stay crisp? To keep crispy cookies crisp, you need to keep them away from moisture. Always store different types of cookies separately—soft cookies can cause crispy cookies to soften due to their extra moisture. Place crispy cookies in an airtight container, but don't completely seal it.
You can rebake cookies to make them crispy. Some cookies only need about five minutes of rebaking to get their fresh, melting, and warm taste back and become crispy again. However, others may need about ten to 15 minutes in an oven set to 300-350 °F (149-177 °C).
Ideally, use the correct kind of sugar called for by the recipe. Or, search for a recipe which specifically calls for powdered / confectioner's sugar instead of granulated sugar. Sugar and fat act as tenderizers in baking. The reason you're getting rubbery cookies is that you have let too much gluten develop.
Introduction: My name is Saturnina Altenwerth DVM, I am a witty, perfect, combative, beautiful, determined, fancy, determined person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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