December 21, 2010

The week of cookies continues! Today I made one of my favorites - the pear spice cookie. I found this recipe in a holiday cookie magazine back in 1999 or 2000 and I've been working with it ever since.

The original recipe is as follows:

Pear Spice Drops

1/2 C Butter

2/3 C Granulated Sugar

2/3C Packed Brown Sugar

1 t Cinnamon

1/2 t Baking Soda

1/2 t Nutmeg

1/8 t Cloves

1 Egg

1/4 C Pear Nectar

2 C Flour

1 C Chopped Fresh Pear

1 C Chopped Walnuts

Beat the butter and add sugars and spices and beat until combined. Beat in egg and pear juice. Beat in flour, chopped pear and walnuts. Drop rounded teaspoons of tough 2" apart on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool and spread with icing.

Powdered Sugar Icing

1/4 C Butter

4 C Sifted Powdered Sugar

1 t Vanilla

2-3 t Milk

Beat butter until soft. Gradually add 2 C of sugar, beating well. Slowly beat in milk and vanilla. Slowly beat in remaining sugar. Beat in additional milk if necessary.

I generally find that I need to add at least 1/2 C -1 C more flour to make this recipe work. This time I forgot to add in the pear juice and it turned out perfect.....except it didn't have as much pear flavor.

The powdered sugar icing is pretty strong in flavor as well as super sweet. So you need the strong pear flavor to balance out the taste. I've tried both fresh pear and canned pears and the recipe turns out fairly similarly, but I like to use fresh pears. Of course you're going to need to crack a can of pears to get the pear nectar anyway so for convenience you might just want to use the canned versions.