Pecan Tassies Recipe: A Classic Bite-Size Pecan Pie

If you’re after a bite-sized pecan treat, pecan tassies are the ones to bake. What sets them apart is the cream cheese in the pastry, which you won’t find in most cookie doughs. One batch makes about two dozen, so there’s plenty to pass around.

Pressing two dozen little shells takes some patience, but nothing here is fussy. If you can stir up a pie filling and press dough into a pan, you can make a batch of these.

What Are Pecan Tassies?

A tassie is similar to a small pecan pie, and the taste is a departure from the usual pecan cookie recipe. The pastry has no sugar in it at all, so the sweetness comes from the filling. The cream cheese in the dough keeps that shell tender, so it gives way as soon as you bite it.

Around here, tassies turn up at Christmas parties, church suppers, and wedding showers, and just about any other table where folks gather.

When you’d rather not bake, order a box of our pecan tassies and have them sent out to you.

Ingredients for a Classic Batch

Here’s what you’ll need for two dozen, one bowl for the crust and one for the filling.

For the crust:

• 3 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup all-purpose flour

For the filling:

• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• A pinch of salt
• 2/3 cup finely chopped pecans
• 24 pecan halves, for the tops

How to Make Pecan Tassies

Here are the steps to follow:

1. Beat the softened cream cheese and butter together until smooth, then stir in the flour until you get a soft dough.
2. Cover the bowl and chill the dough for an hour, until it’s firm enough to roll without sticking to your hands.
3. Heat your oven to 350°F. Roll the dough into 24 balls, about an inch across, and drop one into each cup of an ungreased mini-muffin pan.
4. Press each ball up the sides of its cup with your thumbs or the back of a rounded teaspoon, right to the top edge. What you want is a little shell with a hollow in the middle, with no thick patch sitting in the bottom.
5. Whisk the brown sugar, egg, softened butter, vanilla, and salt in a bowl until smooth to create the filling, then stir in the chopped pecans.
6. Spoon about a teaspoon of filling into each shell, three-quarters of the way up, so there’s room for it to puff.
7. Press a pecan half on top of each one and bake them for 20 to 25 minutes, until the filling has puffed and set and the crust edges are golden.
8. Cool the tassies in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a thin knife around the outside edge of each one to loosen it from the pan, then lift them out and let them cool the rest of the way on a wire rack.

3 Tips for Better Tassies

We’ve baked a lot of tassies for church suppers over the years, and we stick to these three habits every time:

Chop the Pecans Fine

Chop your pecans down to about the size of a grain of rice. Pieces that small spread all the way through the filling, so every bite has pecan and gooey filling together instead of one or the other.

To save yourself some time, you can start with our chopped pecan pieces and chop them finer if you like.

Start With Fresh Pecans

Fresh pecans taste sweet and buttery. Older ones turn bitter once the oils in them go rancid, and in something this small you’ll taste it straight away.

Our family has harvested pecans from the Mother Orchard in San Saba since 1888, and we own the orchard, the shelling plant, and the kitchen. Nobody else handles them along the way, so our fresh pecans reach your kitchen with plenty of flavor still in them.

Keep the Dough Cold

Cold dough is what makes these shells easy to press. If your kitchen is warm, it’ll go soft before you’re through all 24 cups. If that happens, slide the pan back in the fridge for five minutes and carry on where you left off. Dust your thumb with a little flour if the dough starts sticking to you.

Storing Pecans for Holiday Baking

Keep your pecans in an airtight container in the fridge or the freezer. Frozen pecans hold their quality for up to a year and can be refrozen, so you can stock up once and bake out of the same bag all season.

If you’re baking pecan pie cookies and pecan shortbread cookies this season too, you can keep a bag of our bulk pecans in the freezer and bake all season without running to the store.

Frequently asked questions

Can I make the dough ahead of time?

Yes, you can. Wrap it well and keep it in the fridge overnight. If it’s too firm to roll the next morning, leave it on the counter for 10 minutes first.

How should I store the baked tassies?

Keep them in an airtight tin at room temperature and they’ll be good for about three days. For any longer than that, freeze them in a single layer and let them come back to room temperature before you set them out.

Can I use a regular muffin pan?

We’d stick with the mini-muffin pan. A full-size cup takes roughly three times the dough and filling, and what comes out is a small shallow pie rather than something you can eat in two bites.

Can I make the crust without cream cheese?

A plain pie crust will work, though the cream cheese is what keeps these shells tender. Without it, the crust comes out firmer and cracks when you bite it instead of giving way.