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National Pecan Cookie Day

Food · September 21

A day for pecan cookies, from buttery sandies to chewy brown sugar drops, and the simple pleasure of baking or sharing a batch.

National Pecan Cookie Day falls on Tuesday, September 21, 2027. That is 329 days away.

Pecan cookies are any cookie built around the pecan, a rich, buttery nut from a tree in the hickory family. That covers a lot of ground. Some are crumbly and pale, some are chewy and dark with brown sugar, and some are little more than a nut pressed into the top of a sugar cookie.

The pecan sandie is probably the best known. It is a short, sandy cookie made with plenty of butter, flour, sugar and chopped pecans, and it breaks apart in a way that leaves crumbs on whatever you are wearing. Snowball cookies, also called Mexican wedding cookies or Russian tea cakes, roll a nutty dough into balls and coat them in powdered sugar.

Toasting the pecans first makes a noticeable difference. A few minutes in a dry pan or a warm oven deepens the flavor and brings out the oils, though the nuts go from golden to burnt quickly, so they need watching.

People mark the day by baking a batch at home, picking up a few from a local bakery, or digging out a family recipe that only appears once a year. Pecan cookies also travel well, which makes them a common choice for tins handed to neighbors and coworkers.

They keep for several days in an airtight container, and the buttery kinds often taste a little better on day two.

Ways to celebrate

• Bake a batch of pecan sandies using a family or library cookbook recipe.
• Toast pecans before adding them to your usual cookie dough.
• Share a tin of pecan cookies with a neighbor.
• Try a snowball cookie rolled in powdered sugar.
• Look for pecan cookies at a local bakery.

Dates

All national days on September 21

Also on September 21

• Miniature Golf Day
• National Chai Day

Categories: Food days