Shortbread:
40g pecans, finely chopped
125g unsalted butter, softened
60g caster sugar
1 tbsp maple syrup
150g plain flour
30g corn flour
Topping:
40g pecans, finely chopped
1tbsp maple syrup
Pinch sea salt
Glaze:
1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
110g icing sugar
Up to 100ml maple syrup
– First, prepare your pecans either by finely chopping by hand or by pulsing gently in a food processor. (My stick blender came with a small chopper attachment, which is perfect for these kind of jobs when you just need a small amount of something.)
– In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter sugar and maple syrup.
– Add the flour and pecans and mix to combine. At first it will not come together but you can bring it together easily with your hands at the end.
– Shape the dough into a flat disk and wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
– Prepare the pecans by roughly chopping them, leave a few bits that are chunkier.
– put the pecans in an oven proof dish and mix with the maple syrup.
– Sprinkle the sea salt on top.
– Bake in the oven for 10 minutes at 170°. (You can do this at the same time as your first batch of biscuits.)
– Roll out your chilled dough to a thickness of 5 mm between two silicon sheets. (By using the silicon sheets instead of extra flour your dough will not get too dry. But if you don’t have these just sprinkle the worksurface and rolling pin with flour and work quickly to stop it sticking).
– Cut out your shapes, I prefer a maple leaf but they can be any shape you like, and place on a lined baking tray.
– Put the tray in the fridge to chill for at least 10 minutes. This will stop the biscuits from spreading when you bake them so if you’re not using a delicate shape and don’t mind this then you can skip that step.
– Re-roll your dough, but if it gets too sticky you may have to put it back in the fridge for a few minutes to solidify again.
– Heat the oven to 170°C and bake each tray for 10 minutes until just starting to turn golden brown then remove the tray From the oven and leave the biscuits to cool on the tray.
– To prepare the glaze mix together the icing sugar and melted butter in a small bowl. Gradually out of the maple syrup until you get a fairly thick but runny consistency. You may have to add a little more icing sugar or maple syrup to get the consistency you want. It wants to be somewhat like Greek yoghurt, not too thick but not so runny that it slides off your biscuit.
– Once your biscuits are cool, dip each one top down into the glaze then gently shake it back and forth so that the excess glaze falls back into the bowl. Then place back onto the baking tray and sprinkle with your pecan topping mix.
– Repeat for all of your biscuits then leave the glaze to set before serving or putting in an airtight box to store.
Anna in the kitchen 