1986 Winner: Praline Cookies Recipe - butter

Method

• Preparation Time: 25 min
• Baking Time: 10 to 12 minutes1.
• Heat oven to 350 degrees.
• Cream butter, sugar and egg.
• Stir in flour, vanilla and pecans.
• Mix well by hand.
• Shape into balls about the size of walnuts, place on cookie sheets and flatten to about 1/8 inch.
• 2.
• Bake 10 to 12 min, or possibly till brown.
• Remove from oven and allow to coolcompletely and harden.
• (These cookies are chewy, not hard).
• Winner Jean McGree of Flossmoor "bores everyone," she says, with this family tale of Christmas praline cookies: "Since the time Mom had been a little girl, each November Grandma would surround her back yard pecan tree with sheets to catch the falling nuts.
• But most of the nuts had to be knocked from the branches with her long-handled broom.
• Then she would spend hrs stooped over those sheets, picking up the pecans and sorting the good ones from the black and hollow shells.
• "When her daughter married and moved away, the nuts were carefully picked over, packaged and shipped 'up North.'
• Free time in the first week of December was always marked for shelling the pecans.
• Sore hands and stiff backs were repaid with secret nibbling and promises of praline cookies for Christmas.
• "Soon, I'll start looking for a package from Great-Grandma in South Carolina.
• Then, as we crack the pecans, I can retell the 'pecan story' to Michael and Ann, who know which Santa always looks for pralines on Christmas Eve."