Butter Pecan Cookies

This Butter Pecan Cookies Recipe is made with chopped pecans and toffee – the perfect easy-to-make drop cookie recipe for caramel lovers!

 

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Cookies are one of our absolute favourite things to bake because for the amount of work it takes to whip up a batch of drop cookies, the payoff is huge! Especially when they’re delicious cookies like these sweet Butter Pecan Cookies with caramel!

This Butter Pecan Cookies recipe is perfect for holiday baking, but it’s also a delicious treat caramel lovers will enjoy all year ’round!

Butter pecan, with its rich, buttery flavour and nutty undertones, has been a crowd-pleaser for decades. It’s made from pecans cooked in a buttery, sugary sauce that’s similar in taste to caramel or toffee, and it’s most famously known for the popular butter pecan ice cream flavour. By adding Skor toffee bits, we’re creating the butter pecan flavour the easy way, giving these cookies an extra layer of texture and sweetness, and making them even more irresistible – sweet and nutty.

1. The Right Consistency of Dough for the Best Texture: Achieving the right dough consistency is very important. Your dough should be firm enough to hold its shape when rolled into balls but soft enough to be slightly pliable. If the dough is too dry, your cookies might crumble. If the dough is too wet, the dough will be too sticky and difficult to roll, and they will probably spread too much during baking. A good trick is to refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes before baking if you feel that your dough is too soft. This ensures the butter solidifies in the dough, which means it will be easier to work with and will bake up perfectly in the oven.
2. Proper Spacing on the Baking Sheet to Avoid Merging Cookies: No one wants a mega-cookie formed by smaller cookies merging together. Ensure that you space your dough balls at least 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. This gives each cookie ample space to spread without interfering with the other cookies.

There are two pieces of kitchen equipment I use every single time I bake cookies!

1. Achieving the Perfect Cookie Size: Uniformity is key for even baking. Using a cookie scoop (paid link) is our favourite trick for uniform cookies, the easy way! It helps ensure that each cookie is roughly the same size, which leads to consistent baking times and textures.
2. Optimal Baking Temperature and Time to Achieve the Desired Cookie Texture: Most recipes recommend baking at around 350°F (175°C). However, oven temperatures can vary, so keep a close eye on your first batch to judge the perfect baking time for your oven. One of our most important baking tips is to use an oven thermometer (paid link)! Most home bakers don’t have one, but it’s a CRITICAL kitchen tool that allows you to know whether or not your oven temperature is accurate! This will help you adjust baking times and the temperature of your oven and will prevent you from burning or under-baking your holiday treats!

1. Over-baking: Signs to watch out for and prevention: Over-baked cookies can be dry and hard. If the edges start to darken significantly, they’re likely overdone. Using an oven thermometer to help ensure your oven’s temperature is accurate can prevent over-baking. Don’t forget to set a timer when baking!
2. Preventing the cookies from falling apart: Letting your cookies cool on the pan is the best way to ensure they keep their shape after baking. Cookies continue baking and set in the middle after they’ve been removed from the oven. The cooling process is a critical step to achieving the perfect cookies! Be sure to cool them most of the way before removing them gently and carefully to a cooling rack to cool completely.
3. Ensuring your cookies don’t crumble, break or spread : If your dough is too dry, your cookies might crumble. If the dough is too wet, the cookies might spread. Ensure you’ve measured your ingredients accurately and used ingredients at the right temperature – your eggs and butter should be at room temperature and your ingredients can be weighed for accuracy (use grams) or measured carefully (be sure to fluff and scoop your flour so it’s not packed too tightly).

If you bake for the holidays every year, you’ll already know the challenge of baking multiple recipes in a short period of time. Over the years we’ve developed a pretty great system for taking the stress out of holiday baking by stretching out the recipes over the course of several weeks. Here’s how we do it!

1. Start with the complicated recipes first. We start our holiday baking at the end of October when the stress of the holiday season is still a long way off! Block off a Saturday morning and plan to bake one or maybe two more complicated holiday treats, like these Chocolate Caramel Shortbread Bars, for example, that have 2 or more steps. Once they’re done you can freeze them for later and save the easy and simple holiday recipes for baking closer to the holidays when your schedule is busier and you have less time.
2. Be sure your have good storage containers on hand. If you’re planning a lot of holiday baking, you need to be sure you have good quality airtight storage containers on hand where you can store your homemade treats. We have some that we reserve for freezing baked goods throughout the year, like muffins for easy breakfasts and cookies to pull out when unexpected guests drop by. These containers are the ones we love to use (paid link) for freezing all our baking all year round.
3. Use parchment paper or wax paper between the layers. There’s nothing worse than spending time and money on holiday treats that get ruined and stuck together when you freeze them. Be sure to place parchment paper or wax paper (paid link) between the layers of your holiday cookies so they thaw beautifully without losing their appearance.
4. Make room in your freezer. When the holidays are on their way, we always make sure to leave space in the freezer for all the holiday treats we’re going to make. Take some time in September or October to clean out your freezer and use up all the leftovers and ingredients you’ve stashed in there throughout the rest of the year and throw out anything that’s past the use-by date.
5. Label your containers. To keep your holiday baking organized always label the containers with the name of the recipe stored in the container, the number of items, and most importantly the date they were baked. This will help you make sure your holiday baking is fresh and served while it’s still good.
6. Make a variety of treats. We like preparing about 6-8 different holiday cookies and treats. This makes preparing holiday baking trays for events and gatherings easy as you’ve got a variety of treats on hand.
7. Pick out your favourite festive tins. Head to the local dollar store and choose some inexpensive tins you can use for giving away your holiday baking as edible gifts for friends, neighbours and even as teacher gifts. The thrift store can also be a great place to find festive tins – even vintage ones! Give them a good wash in hot soapy water and line them with parchment paper or wax paper before filling them with your creations!

To make this Butter Pecan Cookies Recipe you’ll need to have this kitchen equipment on hand (paid links):

• a Hand Mixer or a Stand Mixer
• Silicone Spatula
• measuring cups and spoons
• Cutting Board
• large knife
• Baking Sheets
• Parchment Paper
• medium cookie scoop

Holiday baking requires that you have some basic kitchen equipment on hand. Here’s a list of our favourite kitchen items for baking during the holiday season (paid links):

1. A Stand Mixer. A stand mixer is one of our favourite pieces of kitchen equipment, especially for holiday baking. It makes whipping up cookie dough or dough for cinnamon buns an absolute breeze, and whipping cream or egg whites takes almost no effort at all with a stand mixer. This KitchenAid stand mixer is one we’ve used for almost 20 years and we love it!
2. A Hand Mixer. A good quality hand mixer is a great substitute for a stand mixer if you don’t have one and a stand mixer isn’t a good fit for your budget. We love our KitchenAid hand mixer and use it all the time in The Busy Baker kitchen!
3. Good Quality Mixing Bowls. Having a set of good mixing bowls is critical for holiday baking. Whether you’re melting chocolate or whipping up cookie dough, these stainless steel mixing bowls do a great job!
4. Measuring Cups and Spoons. Measuring your ingredients properly is an important part of baking. Here’s a set of measuring cups and spoons for dry ingredients we recommend.
5. Liquid Measuring Cups. When measuring liquid ingredients it’s important to use measuring cups that are meant for measuring liquids. These liquid measuring cups are our favourite ones.
6. A Kitchen Scale. If you’re preparing a more difficult recipe that requires that your ingredient amounts be precise, a kitchen scale is great because you can accurately measure your ingredients in grams or ounces. Here’s our favourite kitchen scale we use almost daily.
7. A Whisk. A whisk is an important tool for blending dry ingredients, making glazes or sauces, and so many other uses! Here’s our favourite whisk to use for baking.
8. A Silicone Spatula. A silicone spatula is great for scraping down the bowl when baking, and incorporating ingredients together without adding air into your batter. It’s always a bonus when your silicone spatulas are heat safe for making caramel on the stovetop. Check out our favourite silicone spatulas for baking!
9. Microwave Safe Bowls. Because you can’t put metal in the microwave, having a good set of glass or pyrex bowls is important for tasks like melting chocolate in the microwave. Here’s our favourite set of pyrex bowls for baking.
10. Baking Sheets. What kind of baking sheets you use will depend on the size of your oven, but these Nordic Ware Baking Sheets and these Wilton Baking Sheets are our top 2 favourite baking sheets for all our baking needs.
11. Parchment Paper. We always stock up on parchment paper before the holidays because it’s the best way to keep your baking sheets from becoming stained, it prevents your cookies from sticking when baking, and it helps keep your holiday treats looking beautiful when they’re packed and stored in the freezer.
12. A Cookie Scoop. We love our cookie scoop and use it every single time we bake cookies! It creates cookies that are uniform in size and shape which helps them not only look beautiful but also bake evenly!
13. A Silicone Turner. Removing your cookies from the baking sheet with precision requires a turner that easily slips underneath the cookies. Here’s our favourite silicone turner for this job!
14. Cooling Racks. Cooling your holiday baking before before storing is absolutely critical, so having a set of cooling racks on hand is essential!

Here’s a list of the ingredients you’ll need to make this Butter Pecan Cookies recipe (paid links):

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans plus more for topping
• 1/2 cup Skor toffee bits plus more for topping
• caramel sauce for serving

We hope you love this butter pecan cookies recipe as much as we do! Let us know in the comments below, what’s your favourite cookie flavour? We’d love to know!  

More Cookie Recipes

• Lofthouse Cookies
• Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
• Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookies
• Monster Cookies
• Soft and Chewy Red Velvet Sugar Cookies
• Peanut Butter Blossoms
• Best Ever Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Soft and Chewy Christmas Frosted Sugar Cookies
• Whipped Shortbread Holiday Cookies (Christmas)

If you made this, share a photo!

Are you trying this recipe? Use the comment form below to share your take; now with support for image uploads and comment voting!

Share a photo

Caramel Butter Pecan Cookies

These Caramel Butter Pecan Cookies are the perfect easy-to-make drop cookies for caramel lovers made with chopped pecans!

5 from 6 votes

Print

By Chrissie (thebusybaker.ca)

Yield 18 cookies

Prep 15 minutes mins

Cook 10 minutes mins

Total 25 minutes mins

Recipe: Equipment

• ▢
  Hand Mixer
• ▢
  Stand Mixer
• ▢
  Silicone Spatula
• ▢
  measuring cups and spoons
• ▢
  Cutting Board
• ▢
  large knife
• ▢
  Baking Sheets
• ▢
  Parchment Paper
• ▢
  medium cookie scoop

Recipe: Ingredients 

0.5x1x2x

• ▢ 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature
• ▢ 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• ▢ 1 egg
• ▢ 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ▢ 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• ▢ 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ 1/2 teaspoon salt
• ▢ 1/2 cup chopped pecans plus more for topping
• ▢ 1/2 cup Skor toffee bits plus more for topping
• ▢ caramel sauce for serving

US CustomaryMetric

Recipe: Instructions 

• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper. Set aside.
• Cream the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer on medium-high speed or in a large bowl with a hand mixer until light and fluffy.
• Add the egg and vanilla and mix well until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl.
• Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until a dough forms.
• Add the pecans and Skor toffee bits and mix together just until they’re incorporated into the cookie dough.
• Drop by the spoonful (or roll into balls with your hands) onto the prepared baking sheet and press the cookies down slightly before baking.
• Bake for about 8-10 minutes or until the cookies lose their shine on top.
• Remove from the oven and let cool on the pan for about 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Top with extra pecans, Skor toffee bits, and caramel sauce for serving.

Recipe: Notes

Storage Instructions

These cookies store well (minus the caramel sauce) in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Freezer Instructions

Freeze these cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Add the caramel sauce after defrosting. 

Course: Baking, Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American, Cookies, Dessert, Sweet

Keywords: Caramel Butter Pecan Cookies

Recipe: Nutrition

Nutrition Facts

Caramel Butter Pecan Cookies

Amount Per Serving (1 serving)

Calories 131 Calories from Fat 72

% Daily Value*

Fat 8g12%

Saturated Fat 4g25%

Cholesterol 23mg8%

Sodium 100mg4%

Potassium 27mg1%

Carbohydrates 14g5%

Fiber 1g4%

Sugar 6g7%

Protein 2g4%

Vitamin A 175IU4%

Calcium 7mg1%

Iron 1mg6%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated, using Spoonacular, for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.

Looking for more?

EASY NO-FAIL HOLIDAY RECIPES AND COOKING & BAKING TIPS

Get my easy no-fail holiday meals e-cookbook!

Click here to learn more!