Ground candy cap mushrooms infuse these buttery cookies with big maple flavor. An easy candy cap mushroom recipe!
Sandy, buttery cookies become an addictive conversation piece with the addition of ground candy cap mushrooms and flaky sea salt. When dried, candy caps taste like an earthy version of maple syrup, and add delicious flavor to many baked goods, including these buttery candy cap cookies.
Most candy cap mushroom recipes call for rehydrating the dried candy cap mushrooms, then finely chopping them and adding them to cookie dough or other recipes. But I prefer to treat the dried candy caps like a spice, so I grind them in a coffee grinder, then mix the powder into the dough. Boom: big candy cap mushroom flavor in every bite!
Here I start with a buttery sable dough (French for slice-and-bake butter cookie dough) dough. I tweaked the recipe from my favorite Fran Gage recipe (hers are cardamom). I then add chopped, toasted pecans to play up the maple flavor and add a bit of texture. The dough gets rolled into logs, chilled and sliced. A flurry of flaky Malden salt tops the discs and they bake into crumbly, sandy coins of heaven.
Some shortbread cookies call for the addition of cornstarch, rice flour or powdered sugar, as their lack of gluten contributes a desirable sandy quality. I was surprised and pleased to find that the powdered candy caps had the same effect.
This recipe doubles easily. Extra dough logs store well in the fridge for a week or so, in the freezer for several months. The baked cookies keep for a week or more, stored in an airtight container. Go crazy and serve them with Candy Cap Creme Caramels.
Looking for a gluten-free option? Add the ground candy cap mushrooms and toasted pecans to my gluten-free sugar cookie dough instead.
More cookie recipes:
- Salty Double Rye Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Gluten-Free Ginger Molasses Cookies
- Triple Chocolate Chile Cookies
- Maple Bacon Sugar Cookies
- Anzac Biscuits
*Bojon appétit! For more Bojon Gourmet in your life, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest, purchase my gluten-free cookbook Alternative Baker, or subscribe to receive new posts via email. And if you make this candy cap cookie recipe, I’d love to know. Leave a comment and rating below, and tag your Instagram snaps @The_Bojon_Gourmet and #bojongourmet.*
Salted Pecan and Candy Cap Sables
Print Recipe Pin RecipeIngredients
- 2 teaspoons powdered candy cap mushrooms (about 1/4 cup dried mushrooms, finely ground in coffee grinder)
- 4 ounces unsalted butter, softened but cool (1/2 cup, 1 stick)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/3 cup toasted pecans, chopped
- flaky sea salt, such as Malden, for topping the cookies
Instructions
- In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the candy cap powder, butter, sugar and salt until well combined and slightly lightened, about 2 minutes. (This dough gets creamed less than usual for cookies and cakes; it should be fairly dense and cool to make it easier to shape into logs.) Add the flour and pecans, mix on low until just combined. Fold the dough a few times by hand to make sure it is thoroughly combined.
- Roll the dough into a log, about 12" long and 1" in diameter. (For a perfectly round log, roll in a sheet of parchment paper, using a bench scraper or ruler to squeeze the parchment tightly around the dough. See photo, above.) If not using parchment, wrap the log in plastic or wax paper. Chill until firm, 1 hour, or up to several days. (You can also freeze the logs. Thaw in the fridge before proceeding.)
- Preheat the oven to 350º. Let the log stand at room temperature for 10 or 15 minutes. Unwrap, and slice the log into 1/4 - 1/2" coins. (Rotate the log every few slices to prevent it from flattening on one side.) Arrange the cookies, one to two inches apart, on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and sprinkle each coin with several flecks of salt.
- Bake the coins until they are nicely golden all over, about 15-25 minutes, rotating once or twice. Underbaked cookies will be bland and pasty, so let these go a bit longer than you think. They will crisp up as they cool.
- The cookies store very well in an airtight container for up to a week.
Notes
Nutrition
asmallfryup says
how are there any of those left to store well?
Will says
I've tried quite a few candy cap cookies variations, but this one is my favorite! Thank you so much for sharing it with the world :)
Dawn says
The cookies spread to very thin wafers with brown edges. They are more like lace cookies than sand cookies. I've tried them at two different temperatures - 350 and 375. I tried letting the dough sit for 10 minutes after the fridge before cutting and I tried cutting and cooking right out of the fridge. Nothing seems to work. Is the butter ration right or too much?
Alanna says
Hi Dawn, I'm sorry you're having trouble with these - that sucks. The recipe is correct - this is a standard ratio for sable cookies that I've made many times, and my friend Will who commented here long ago made this recipe with no trouble. Here's another recipe with the same ratios: http://leitesculinaria.com/93126/recipes-french-sable-cookies.html. But if yours are spreading regardless of the fixes you've tried (that is exactly what I would have tried, too!), then next time try adding a bit more flour - maybe 2-4 tablespoons. So sorry again that they're giving you trouble!
Dawn says
Hi Alanna, I finally tried again with ground candy caps I'd saved in the cupboard and added about 1/8 cup more flour and they worked! They are lovely! Part of my problem was probably that I am using gluten-free flour. Sorry, I didn't mention that before. I made this batch to share with some friends to show them how mushrooms can be made into sweet goodies! Thanks!
Alanna says
Oh that's wonderful! What kind of GF flour did you use?
Dawn says
It's one of three mixes in a book titled, Gluten-Free Flour Power by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot. I use it to make all kinds of things and usually can get away with a one-to-one ratio on recipes calling for wheat flour. Guess not on this one, though.
Dawn says
Have you used Candy Caps in any other recipes, savory or sweet?
Alanna says
So good to know about that flour mix, thanks! I posted this candy cap creme caramel long ago. :)
Carolyn Tillie says
I’m confused about the candy cap measurement; 4 TABLESPOONS = 1/4 cup, so how does 2 TEASPOONS = 1/4 cup?
Alanna says
Sorry for the confusion! I updated the recipe to clarify. You start with 1/4 whole dried candy caps, then grind them finely in a coffee grinder, which should equal about 2 teaspoons.
Carolyn Tillie says
I should have waited for a reply.... I ground up enough for 1/4 cup dried mushrooms. They are sitting in the ‘fridge now, but I knew from the feel that it was too dry. It will have to wait until I can buy more butter and then figure out how to fix it before baking...
Olivier Galante says
I made some for colleagues last year. One of them told me that the only thing she wanted before retiring was to taste one more time those cookies (that I made with self picked lactairus helvus from Québec). I am cooking them again tonight as she is retiring this week.
Mai says
Hello - do you have a substitution recommendation for the candy caps?
Thank you!!
Alanna says
Hi Mai, the candy caps are really just for flavor, so you could either omit them, add in some ground spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, or cardamom would all be nice), or you could try using a more flavorful sugar such as maple sugar or coconut sugar. Please let me know what you try!
Andi says
Just made these, they came out really lovely! The maple flavor of the candy caps totally comes through, and the way it's complimented by the toasted pecans, buttery goodness, and sprinkle of salt is a beautiful marriage. The texture was perfectly sandy without falling apart once you bite into it. I will say I checked mine at about 20 minutes in the oven and they were a little overdone, but again - still delish. Thanks for the recipe!
Alanna Taylor-Tobin says
I'm so glad you loved this old recipe of mine! I went ahead and shortened the baking time, so thanks very much for the feedback!