Easy butter pecan, toffee cookies recipe for all of you fans of butter pecan or butter brickle ice cream! Notes and suggestions can be found in the content below the recipe.
These drop cookies are easy to make, freeze well, travel well, and are a buttery, slightly salty twist on chocolate chip cookies. Slip some in the kids' lunches next week!
Butter pecan ice cream was a staple food item in our freezer when I was growing up — it was my mom's favorite. My kids all love the butter pecan/butter brickle flavor because it reminds them of Gramma.
I am almost embarrassed to admit it but I use to really, really hate the texture of ice cream. I would only eat soft serve or softened ice cream that had the texture of soft serve. Now I know it was because of sensory processing disorder but back in the 1960s we didn't have things like ADHD, ADD, ODD, and SPD. We had naughty behavior and butt whuppin's. Criticize if you want but for the most part it worked at least as well as most of the medications that kids are on now.
Anyway, I didn't start eating "regular" ice cream until I was about six. We lived just northeast of Philadelphia and would drive up the Pennsylvania Turnpike to visit relatives in Michigan several times a year. I always remember those car trips as being beautiful — I don' know what it looks like now. Along the route there were a couple of Howard Johnson's restaurants and that orange and turquoise decor seemed to be a siren song to my mom. If we stopped to eat you can bet it would be at a Howard Johnson's.
The had the creamiest, tingliest peppermint ice cream that I have ever had, or at least it seemed like it back then. The promise of that ice cream was usually enough to get me to sit up and eat at least half of the meal. We would sit at the counter on one of the twirly, shiny chrome stools with the turquoise vinyl top... If I was lucky. I loved those stools. In fact, I got really excited when I saw them in a local Steak and Shake (only in red — even better) so obviously the magic is still there!
I always got the peppermint and she always got the butter pecan. Looking back, I can't remember her ever eating any other kind. These cookies have that buttery pecan flavor thanks to the real butter and toasted pecans. Using salted butter just brings out the flavor a little more but you can use unsalted if you like.
You can leave the butterscotch chips out but when I made them both ways the butterscotch chips seemed to really make the flavor pop. Use your own taste as a guide.
As always with buttery drop cookies take them out of the oven a few seconds before they are done and let them cool. You'll have chewy cookies with a crispy edge. In my mind that is the texture of a perfect cookie!
And... If you happen to live by one of the few remaining Howard Johnson's please go in, order peppermint ice cream, and twirl on a stool for me, would you?
Butter Pecan Toffee Cookies
Print SaveEquipment Needed
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1 teaspoons vanilla
- ½ teaspoon butternut flavor, optional
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon boiling water
- 1 ½ cups butterscotch chips
- ½ cup toffee pieces
- 1 ½ cups pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped
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Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F
- Place silpat or parchment on the baking sheet
- Cream the butter and both sugars together until well blended
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one
- Beat in the vanilla and butternut flavorings
- Dissolve the baking soda and salt in the boiling water
- Beat it into the butter mixture
- Mix the baking powder with the flour
- Stir into the butter mixture
- Fold in the butterscotch chips, toffee, and pecans
- Drop by teaspoonfuls onto the baking sheet
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until set but still slightly soft in the middle
- Let cool for 10 minutes on the pans before removing to the counter to finish cooling.
Sue M.
These are delicious and everyone I've given them to love them as well. I did not have butternut flavoring but I had Watkins Butter flavoring so I used that instead. The last time I made them, out of habit, I added the baking soda and salt to the flour so I eliminated the teaspoon of boiling water altogether and they came out just fine. I'm not sure why that's in the recipe but perhaps it makes them rise more. In any event, the cookie turned out just fine and rose just like normal. Delicious.