Name: Chocolate Pecan Truffle Cookies
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 9 min
Total time: 39 min
Ingredients: 4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate; 6 tablespoons butter; 1 bag (12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate baking pieces); 2 cups all-purpose flour; 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder; ¼ teaspoon baking powder; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup sugar; 3 eggs; 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract; ½ cup chopped pecans

These Chocolate Pecan Truffle Cookies are chocolaty, rich, and delicious. A perfect addition to your Christmas baking.

A serving tray filled with Chocolate Pecan Truffle Cookies.

When it was time to come up with a recipe for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, these are the delectable little bites of goodness I went with. The holiday cookie exchange was hosted again by Lindsay of Love and Olive Oil and Julie of The Little Kitchen. This year, the ladies partnered with Cookies for Kids’ Cancer and contributed 100% of participant donations to this great cause. The generous folks at OXO® matched our donations, dollar for dollar, up to $100,000!

I had the task of baking three dozen cookies and shipping a dozen each to three different food bloggers across the country. There were several benefits to participating in this year’s exchange:

I love to bake and this gave me a valid excuse.
I got to support an extremely worthy cause while doing something I love.
I got cookies in the mail – three times!

Back to the cookies. This is a modified version of a recipe I came across on Taste of Home. I was looking for a substantial cookie that would pack and ship well so I upped the amount of flour called for by a pretty substantial amount and I was absolutely thrilled with the result. The dough is so easy to work with and it holds it’s shape perfectly as it bakes, resulting in a truffle like appearance. They are chocolaty, rich, and delicious and would be a perfect addition to your Christmas baking. They are also sturdy enough to ship off to loved ones near and far.

All the required ingredients to make Chocolate Pecan Truffle Cookies.

The grocery list – unsweetened baking chocolate, unsweetened cocoa powder, semi-sweet chocolate baking pieces, pecans, pure vanilla extract, butter, baking powder, salt, all-purpose flour, sugar, and eggs.

Grab a small, heavy saucepan and in goes the butter, unsweetened baking chocolate, and 1 cup of the semisweet chocolate baking pieces. Place it over low heat and cook, stirring occasionally until…

A wooden spoon with melted chocolate drizzling into a pan.

…it looks like this. Melted, chocolate goodness. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside for now.

A mixing bowl filled with the dry ingredients.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.

Melted chocolate being poured into a bowl of wet ingredients.

In a large bowl beat together sugar, eggs, and vanilla with an electric hand mixer. After the chocolate mixture has cooled for about 30 minutes, add it to egg mixture and beat until well combined.

The dry ingredients are added into the chocolate mixture.

Add the entire flour mixture into the chocolate mixture. Just dump it right in. Using a wooden spoon, mix until it is completely combined.

Semisweet Chocolate pieces and pecans added to the cookie dough.

Add the remaining semisweet chocolate pieces and the chopped pecans. Resist the urge to grab a spoon and go to town on this stuff. You can do it, I know you can!

The cookie dough balls being arranged on a cookie sheet.

Spoon out small rounds of dough, about an 1″ in diameter, on to parchment paper lined baking sheets. You can use your hands to round them out a little but don’t roll them into perfect little balls. They look better a little rough around the edges.

The cookie sheet covered with balls of cookie dough.

In the oven they go! 350 degrees for about 8 or 9 minutes.

The cookies right after they are done baking.

See how beautifully they hold their shape? Pull them out when they appear to be set but be careful not to over bake them since they will set up a bit more as they cool.

Chocolate Pecan Truffle Cookies cooling on a wire rack.

Transfer them to wire racks to cool completely. Yum.

Chocolate Pecan Truffle Cookie being held up.

Let’s do this…

Chocolate Pecan Truffle Cookie with a bite taken.

Pure. Chocolate. Heaven.

The cookies boxed up for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.

Here’s a peek at how I packaged them up to ship off to my blogger recipients.

I found these cute little white treat boxes at a local craft store. Inexpensive and just perfect for this purpose. I sealed the cookies inside quart sized plastic storage bags to keep them fresh, placed them inside the boxes and tied them up with some pretty Christmas ribbon.

A gift box with cookies being boxed up for shipping.

Once inside the shipping boxes, I filled in around the edges with packing material and they were good to go.

Thanks to Lindsay and Julie for hosting this fun event. Thanks also to the three bloggers who made my day, three days in a row, when my postman arrived with yummy Christmas cookies with my name on them:

Nicki of Nick Stirs
Samantha of Sweet Remedy
Jenne of Mooshu Jenne