Sand Tarts
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup butter (softened)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon cold water
- 4 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (I use the food processor to get them as fine as possible)
Instructions:
- You can use a mixer or mix by hand for this recipe. I prefer to mix by hand to prevent over mixing. Combine the butter and sugar until just combined.
- Add the sugar, vanilla and water, mixing until just combined.
- Add flour and pecans, mixing until a dough forms.
- Line a sheet pan with wax paper and press the dough into the pan to form a large rectangle. I used a 12 x 18 sheet pan and pressed the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness. You can make them thicker if you don't have a large enough pan and just adjust your baking time.
- Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 3-4 hours or overnight.
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Cut the chilled dough into squares and then triangles and arrange on your prepared baking sheets. As long as your dough is chilled, it would spread in the oven so they can sit pretty close together on the sheets - just not touching.
- Bake for 30-45 minutes depending on the thickness. I know this is a large range, but they are done when the edges are just starting to brown so start checking at 30 minutes. Mine were 1/4 inch thick and took 35 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and slide the parchment paper off of the baking trays for cooling.
- Roll the cookies in powdered sugar while they are still warm. I waited about 30 seconds before rolling mine because they start cooling very quickly once they are off of the baking sheet. If they are too hot, the sugar will just melt onto them, but if they are cool it will not stick.