📖 Snappy Turtle Cookies
With a maple cookie base, a rich chocolate frosting "turtle shell", and pecan halves used to represent "turtle feet", these turtle shaped cookies are sure to delight your friends and family!
Servings: 48 Servings
Equipment
- Stand Mixer (alternative is a large mixing bowl + hand mixer)
Ingredients
- 1 Cup salted butter, softened
- 1 Cup brown sugar (light or dark)
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon maple flavoring (maple extract)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 Cups all-purpose flour
- 4 Cups pecan halves
- 1 ,16 ounce container of milk chocolate frosting (such as Betty Crocker, or Duncan Hines)
Instructions
- Place the softened butter and the brown sugar to a large bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment) and cream together until fluffy.
- Add the remaining wet ingredients (the eggs, vanilla extract, and maple flavoring), and stir to combine.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients (the baking soda, salt, and flour) to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined and a dough is formed.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (up to overnight). Chilling helps you shape dough into the turtle bodies without it being sticky.
- While the dough chills, place groups of 4 pecan halves on your cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Be sure the place them so the tips of pecans will be able to show once you place your dough balls onto them.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F, and roll dough into 1-inch balls (I like to use a small cookie scoop to make this even easier!) and gently press a dough ball onto each set of pecan legs.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are a light golden brown and just set (do not overbake!). Allow to cool on the pan for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- Once completely cool, frost tops of each turtle with milk chocolate frosting to create the shells. Allow the frosting to set before storing.
Notes
Storage
Store cookies in an airtight container with wax paper between layers at room temperature for up to 5 days. See 'Storage' section of the blog post for how to freeze the dough and the cookies if desired.Recipe Variations and Substitutions
- Use unsalted butter. If you'd prefer to bake with unsalted butter in this recipe, swap out the salted butter 1-for-1 and increase the amount of salt to ½ teaspoon.
- Make homemade frosting. If you'd prefer to make your own frosting (they are usually pretty easy recipes), go for it! This chocolate frosting recipe would be a good choice for these cookies.
Possible Dietary Restrictions?
This cookie recipe is vegetarian as written. You can also alter this recipe to be gluten free too!- To make this into a gluten free cookie recipe, replace the all-purpose flour called for in the recipe with a one-to-one gluten free flour alternative. If you're serving these to someone with celiac disease, be sure to check the label of the frosting you use for gluten-containing ingredients (or make a homemade one).
