CRUST
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 oz cream cheese, softened
1 cup unsifted all-purpose flour
FILLING
1 each egg
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tbsp butter, melted
1 pinch salt
3/4 cup chopped pecans
Directions
Preparation time: 30 minutes Cooking time: 25 minutes
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Have ready 2 miniature muffin tins with
cups that measure about 2 inches across and 7/8 inch deep.
2. For crust, beat butter with cream cheese until smooth. Add flour
and mix until a dough forms. Divide into 24 balls. With your fingers,
press each ball into an ungreased muffin cup, taking care to make a
smooth, even layer over the bottom and up the sides.
3. For filling, whisk egg in a medium bowl. Add sugar, butter and
salt and mix well.
4. Spoon about 1/2 teaspoon chopped pecans into each crust. Add
filling so it comes almost to the top of the cups, making sure it
doesn't spill over. Sprinkle remaining pecans over the top.
5. Bake 15 minutes. Reduce oven to 250 degrees and continue to bake
until crust is light brown at the edges, 10 minutes. Cool. When
muffin tin is cool enough to handle, loosen cups from the sides of
the tin and carefully transfer to a wire rack. Cool to room
temperature.
This second place winner is by Frances Marcinkiewicz of Countryside,
Illinois. from the Chicago Tribune fifth annual Food Guide Holiday
Cookie Contest December 3, 1992
Servings: 24 servings
1992 2nd Place: Pecan Tassies Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Nut; Pecan
The History of Recipes
We are able to read the history of meal recipes back into antiquity, in fact as far back into recorded history as the Egyptians, and possibly even further. Having said that, these, early recipes were just basic pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform instructions for meal preparation.
The truth of the matter is, the oldest recipe discovered so far, according to experts in ancient history are a few clay tablets in the Sumerian language which describe the baking of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made anyone who tried it feel `exhilarated, wonderful and blissful`. As we move into The time of the romans around 25BC a roman called Apicius created some scripts describing recipes cooked by wealthy Romans. In his scrolls, he tells us how the meals of wealthy Romans were divided into starters, main meal and dessert, something that is very familiar to us today. He also tells us how the Roman chefs were skilled in the use of many aromatic flavours, including a few that are still present in modern kitchens like basil, fennel and asafoetida. Later, in the fifteenth century, people returning from the crusades brought back many foods and herbs from Arab cuisine, including spices like coriander, basil and rosemary. These new foods and spices was responsible for an eruption in publications on food, some of which still exist in private collections. During the next few centuries, the powerful and rich competed with each other to serve the most extravagent meals, and because of this the best chefs and their recipes increased in prestige. Nevertheless, it was during the 19th century that fine cookery and recipe publications really came of age. The Famous Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally famous Fannie Merritt Farmer in the US, devoted much of their lives to collating, trying out, and recording recipes to help cooks of their time. By the advent of the 20th century, cookbooks are in high demand, mostly as a result of higher levels of literacy, people having increased free time and a general increase in wealth. The revolution that is television gave us cooking programs and the demand for the accompanying recipe books. And that neatly brings us to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, allowing us all to access massive numbers of recipes like the ones you can find on our site. |
We hope you enjoy this 1992 2nd Place_ Pecan Tassies recipe.
