Shiela’s Holiday Cookies

My friend Shiela shared these cookies with David and me last Christmas. I think David got to eat one. :-)  Freeze them to keep them fresh; they defrost quickly.

2 cups pecans
2 cups cake flour
2 sticks butter
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sugar (or 1/2 cup powdered sugar)
About 1/2 cup powdered sugar for coating cookies

Finely grind pecans in food processor.
Sift flour and add to ground pecans. Pulse a few times to mix.
Cream 2 sticks butter with ¼ cup sugar (or ½ cup powdered sugar) in mixer.
Add 2 tsp vanilla.
Add the flour/pecans and mix well.

Chill dough for 30 minutes to an hour to make it easier to handle. Then roll into 1-inch balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 300 deg for 25-30 minutes until lightly browned around the edges. Carefully remove cookies with spatula into bowl of powdered sugar and coat while still warm. Cool on rack. (I just sprinkle the cookies with powdered sugar while they are on the cookie sheet because they kept crumbling on me. Perhaps because I used regular flour and not cake flour.)

NOTE: Shiela recommends that you split the dough into two lumps and chill in separate containers. This way if the bowl you're working out of begins getting too warm while you're shaping the dough, you can slip it back into the refrigerator and work out of the other bowl.