Ganache Filled Pecan Cookies

by Shoshana on April 4, 2012 · 9 comments

Several years ago my husband and I worked in the kitchen at the Seminary. While the food in the regular cafeteria at the Seminary was always pretty good, it was fun to work the fancy catered meals and see what delicious things the chef would come up with. One thing that was often served at the fancy meals that wasn’t made in house was an assortment of petit fours and cookies. Elegant assortments of tiny cookies, tarts, cream puffs and mousses that were served with coffee. They were all beautiful to look at, but to be perfectly honest most of them didn’t taste all that great. The one exception was the almond florentines. Shatteringly crisp cookies sandwiched with dark chocolate, those were my favorites. And fortunately for me, as someone working in the kitchen, because they were do delicate there were always broken ones at the bottom of the box to snack on.

So what do those cookies have to do with these cookies? Even though they look totally different my husband took one bite of these and said “these taste like those cookies we liked at the Seminary.” I completely agree. They do not have the crispness of those cookies, they are more of a chewy cookie, but the caramel-y nut flavor combined with chocolate is very similar. One of the tasters even said he thought it tasted like there were oats in the cookies which, even though there aren’t in these cookies, there are in florentines. Even better these cookies are extremely easy to make. The ganache is smooth and creamy, with the texture of frosting. The ganache is so silky and smooth, it is one of my new favorite fillings. It is going to be showing up in a lot of different recipes, that is for sure.

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