Thursday, September 19, 2024

Maple Walnut Tassies


A twist on the standard pecan model, these maple walnut tassies are little bites of texture paradise. Delicate cream cheese cookie dough cradles a candy maple-brown sugar walnut filling, and a snowy dusting of confectioners’ sugar is all of the ornament they should be prepared for his or her vacation cookie tray debut. You received’t be capable of cease at only one, so it’s factor the recipe makes 4 dozen!

close-up of maple walnut tassies with one with bite taken out.

“However Sally,” chances are you’ll be pondering, “I believed this was Sally’s COOKIE Palooza, and these appear to be mini pecan pies! Have you ever lastly run out of cookie recipe concepts?” Good query, expensive reader! So let’s start with:

What Are Tassies?

The phrase “tassie,” I be taught, comes from the Scottish slang for a small cup, which in flip originated from the French phrase for cup, tasse. Baked in a mini muffin pan, these cute cookie cups are produced from a gentle cream cheese cookie dough, and might maintain actually any filling you’d like, although pecan tassies appear to be the commonest. I even have a recipe for these in my e book Sally’s Cookie Dependancy, which is the place I began from when growing this new recipe.

(And, for the document, I’ll by no means run out of cookie recipe concepts.)

maple walnut tassies with sprinkle of confectioners' sugar on top.

Right here’s Why You’ll Love Them:

  • Delicate, crispy, creamy, nutty, and candy multi functional
  • Not like making mini pies, there’s no rolling out pie dough, slicing circles, and re-rolling
  • Recipe makes lots!
  • They freeze effectively so you may make them forward
  • A lot texture and taste in a single cute little cup

Begin With the 5-Ingredient Dough

The dough is produced from simply 5 components, and comes collectively simply in a meals processor. When you don’t have a meals processor, you might actually use a mixer.

ingredients measured on marble counter including cream cheese, butter, sugar, flour, and salt.
  1. Flour: All-purpose flour is the bottom of this dough.
  2. Sugar: There’s just one/4 cup of sugar within the dough, as many of the sweetness in these cookies comes from the maple brown sugar filling.
  3. Salt: Taste enhancer.
  4. Cream Cheese: Cream cheese makes the dough further gentle and creamy, which I really like in so many cookie recipes, like apricot cream cheese thumbprints and cream cheese sugar cookies. Let the cream cheese soften to room temperature earlier than you make the dough.
  5. Butter: Be sure to’re utilizing room-temperature butter so it combines simply and fully with the cream cheese. My cookbook model makes use of chilly butter, and that’s positive too, however I discovered this model produces a softer dough cup.

The dough is much like the dough I take advantage of for rugelach cookies, although that dough is flakier and crisp similar to pie crust. Right here the dough is gentle and tender, virtually like a lightly-sweetened cookie.

Place the components within the bowl of your meals processor and switch it on. Watch as every thing combines right into a gentle and thick dough on the push of a button:

cream cheese and butter in food processor with flour and shown again mixed together.

Divide the dough in half, and flatten every half right into a disc. Wrap every disc in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at the very least 2 hours. (This is similar approach I like to recommend getting ready cut-out cookie dough in freeze cookie dough.)

cream cheese dough split in half and shown again flattened into discs.

Find out how to Form Tassies

Take away one chilled disc of dough from the fridge—one disc is sufficient for one 24-cup mini muffin pan.

Pinch off a bit of dough, a couple of scant Tablespoon, or 18g, in measurement. Roll right into a ball and place in a greased mini muffin pan. Press your thumb down into the dough ball to create a deep indent, and form the dough up the perimeters of the muffin cup, to create the shell.

balls of dough in mini muffin pan and shown again being pressed with a thumb.

When you’ve formed the dough cups, place the pan within the fridge to maintain the dough chilly when you make the filling.

TIP: When you have two mini muffin pans, you may go forward and form the second disc of dough into tassie shells, however if you happen to solely have one pan, go away the second dough disc within the fridge till after you’ve baked the primary batch and your pan is accessible.


Make the Maple Walnut Filling

The filling is as simple because the dough, and also you want only a mixing bowl and a whisk to make it:

ingredients on counter including walnuts, melted butter, brown sugar, maple syrup, and eggs.
  • Eggs: Eggs bind the components collectively and set the filling.
  • Brown Sugar: Molasses-spiked brown sugar is the principle sweetener in these maple walnut tassies.
  • Maple Syrup: You need that true maple taste, so use pure maple syrup right here, not “pancake syrup.”
  • Melted Butter: Provides only a contact of richness, and taste.
  • Vanilla, Salt, & Cinnamon: Taste-enhancing trio.
  • Walnuts: Chop them fairly finely, so you may match extra nuts in every tiny tasse!

One addition I examined and actually preferred after I took the above photograph, was a contact of maple extract. When you have it, go forward and add some. You’ll love that further maple taste. You could find it within the baking aisle of most grocery shops, or on-line.

Whisk all of the filling components collectively. Simple peasy!

Take away the pan(s) of formed tassie shells from the fridge. Use a teaspoon to spoon the filling into every cookie cup. The quantity you may slot in every cup actually relies on how deep you indent the dough, so you could have some filling leftover:

nut filling in glass bowl and shown again being spooned into mini muffin pan crusts.

The maple walnut tassies bake in about 18–22 minutes. Whenever you’re able to serve them, costume them up with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar. This little snow flurry is optionally available, however makes for a candy and delightful crowning glory.

The crisp sugared edges, the gentle and creamy dough, the crunchy nutty filling… they give the impression of being so harmless, however they’ll in all probability be one of the vital distractingly scrumptious cookies on the vacation cookie tray!

close-up of maple walnut tassies with confectioners' sugar dusted on top.
Can I substitute the walnuts with pecans?

Sure, completely! You’ll be able to swap out the walnuts for a similar quantity of very chopped pecans. Pecan tassies are the unique and most typical number of this cookie.

Can I make these nut-free?

I don’t suggest it, as nuts are the principle ingredient within the filling. I haven’t tried the filling with oats, although they may very well be a positive substitute. For finest outcomes, I like to recommend a unique cookie comparable to peppermint snowballs, shortbread, or brown sugar stamped cookies.

Can I make these with no mini muffin pan?

You want a mini muffin pan to carry the form of the tassies. Sadly, you may’t make/form them with out it. The filling is just too skinny/liquid to make use of because the filling for a thumbprint-like cookie. An everyday 12-count muffin pan is just too giant, and these can be fairly huge. Nevertheless, you may actually strive it and lengthen the bake time. See recipe Be aware.

Can I halve this maple walnut tassies recipe?

Sure. You’ll be able to halve the recipe by halving the entire components within the dough and the filling.

one maple walnut tassie with bite taken out on top of another.

Sally’s Cookie Palooza

This recipe is a part of my annual cookie countdown known as Sally’s Cookie Palooza. It’s the most important, most scrumptious occasion of the 12 months! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sally’s Cookie Palooza web page together with:

and listed here are 75+ Christmas cookies with all my finest success guides & suggestions.

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