Brass Sisters Pecan Wafer

With Marilynn and Sheila Brass

This recipe came from “The Radio Lady” who took notes during the 1920s while listening to a cooking show on WJAR radio station in Providence, RI. We put these cookies together in about ten minutes while we preheated the oven. Add fifteen minutes for baking, five minutes for cooling, and we had almost instant gratification. These crispy, light cookies taste of pecans from the Old South.

Ingredients

1 cup dark brown sugar
6 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup chopped pecans

Instructions

1. Set the oven rack in the middle position. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Prepare a 14-inch by 16-inch baking sheet by covering it with parchment paper or a silicone liner.
2. Combine brown sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add eggs and mix well. Fold in pecans.
3. Drop dough by teaspoons 2 inches apart on pans. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Place baking sheet on a rack and let cool 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to rack and cool completely.

Cookies will crisp as they cool.

Recipe courtesy of The Brass Sisters, Heirloom Baking, 2006.

Authors of "Heirloom Baking With The Brass Sisters" and "Heirloom Cooking With The Brass Sisters;" â?¨Hosts of "The Brass Sisters: Queens of Comfort Food"

From their web site:

We are two roundish bespectacled women in our sixties who have a combined total of 114 years of home baking and cooking experience. We have always felt comfortable in the kitchen because we learned to bake and cook at a very early age. Our mother, Dorothy, was an inspired home cook, and the meals she produced when we lived on Sea Foam Avenue, in Winthrop, Massachusetts, more than 60 years ago are still memorable.

More than thirty years ago we discovered manuscript cookbooks, those collections of personal recipes compiled by home cooks. Handwritten notes on crumbling scraps of paper or the pages of old, well-worn cookbooks led us to “lost” family recipes. Recipe collections that survived were typically gathered together in small bundles, stitched, tied, stapled, or boxed, and handed down to the next generation. These forgotten bundles of culinary history turn up at yard sales and flea markets, in used bookstores, and on the pantry shelves of friends. Over the years, we have acquired more than 150 of these collections of living recipes.

Writing Heirloom Baking and Heirloom Cooking has been a labor of love. We are dedicated to recovering, updating and — above all — enjoying the best home recipes from America’s past. By presenting these recipes simply and with a contemporary flair, we are hoping to help a new generation of cooks and their families discover and enjoy the special tastes of the culturally diverse American kitchen.