Bake Mini Pecan Tart Cookies for the Christmas Holiday

This traditional holiday cookie recipe is also gluten and corn free:

Mini Pecan Tarts, also called Nut Cups

I practiced a lot this past holiday with some of our family’s favorite home-baked cookie recipes, a tradition among the women in our extended family that dates back to a time long before I was born. This was our first gluten free Christmas, and it began with several mishaps and a lot of perseverance. Here is my all time best success this year.

These mini-muffin sized sweets are perfect for entertaining or that special occasion you’d like to attend. Also known as “Nut Cups”, this allergy friendly treat passed the test with all our gluten eating friends and family. They couldn’t taste the difference, nor did they see one. Taste, texture, and consistency are very like the familiar recipe that my grandmother and mother once prepared. We are a ‘natural foods’ family, so this recipe is also good for people following the Feingold diet and avoiding artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives.

Ingredients:

Crust:

2 cups of Betty Hagman’s all-purpose gluten free flour recipe * see below for details

1/2 cup of unsalted Kerrygold Irish Butter (or any other unsalted butter from the safe foods list)

NOTE: The crust can be made without adding the butter and cream cheese. You can substitute with 1 cup Spectrum Palm Oil and omit the cheese, but your crust will be crispier and a little more crumbly. (See our pie crust recipe as an example). Another alternative for folks with dairy allergies is to make a special batch of only the cookie filling in a lightly greased and floured ramekin dish.

1/2 cup of spectrum shortening

6 oz of regular cream cheese (make sure brand is corn-free, which omits all low fat varieties as far as I can tell. Cream cheese contains casein)

Filling:

4 tablespoons melted butter (or spectrum shortening if you are doing casein free)

2 eggs, beaten well.

1/2 cup unpacked brown sugar (I like to use organic sucanant)

2 cups of chopped pecans

Directions:

In a mixer, combine all crust ingredients and mix well until dough forms a solid ball. Remove from mixer and chill at least one hour.

In a separate bowl combine melted margarine, beaten eggs, brown sugar and pecans. Mix well.

See more gf cookie recipes!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll dough into teaspoon sized balls and place them into the individual mini-muffin molds. Using your knuckles and fingertips, mold the dough into mini pie crusts. Fill each finished crust 2/3 high with nut filling. Bake 20-25 minutes. Remove from pan immediately and cool on a wire rack. (They should pop right out, granted you did not over-fill the individual cups and cause the filling to stick all over the rim of the tin.)

Makes about 36 tarts. Corn-free confectioner’s sugar can be sprinkled on top if you’d like.

NOTE: To prepare Betty Hagman’s flour recipe I usually mix 2 parts white rice flour, 2/3 part potato starch, 1/3 part tapioca flour in large batches and store it for future use ‘on the fly’ in many regular recipes that require all purpose flour.