3 1/4 cups a.p. flour
1/4 tsp salt
12 oz cream cheese, softened
12 oz unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla bean paste (or 2 1/2 tsp vanilla)
2 1/2 cups walnut or pecan halves
1 1/2 Tbls cinnamon
2 cups sugar
Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
Beat your cream cheese with your butter on medium speed with the paddle attachment of your stand mixer. Beat until fully combined and smooth. Add your vanilla bean paste or vanilla and thoroughly mix.
Turn your mixer off and add 1/3 of the dry ingredients. Slowly turn the mixer on and beat until incorporated. Repeat two more times. Dough will come together.
Lay a large piece of plastic wrap on the counter and transfer your dough to the wrap. Form the dough with your fingers into a rectangle about 8" by 12" (not looking for perfection here).
Cover with another piece of wrap and refrigerate for an hour. If you're going to freeze your dough for later use, wrap securely with another layer of wrap and place into a sealable bag or wrap with foil.
Combine your cinnamon with your sugar and set aside.
Process your walnut or pecan halves in a food processor. We're looking for finely chopped but not dust. Don't pulse too far or you'll wind up with flour!
Add your cinnamon sugar to your nuts and set aside.
Remove your dough from the refrigerator.
With your dough still on the bottom piece of wrap, cut in half lengthwise (so you'll have two 4" by 12" pieces). Rewrap one half and place back in the refrigerator.
Sprinkle 1 cup of the nut/sugar mixture on your work surface. Spread it out about 1 1/2" bigger on all sizes than your dough.
Lay your dough in the center of the nut/sugar mixture. Sprinkle with another cup of the nut/sugar mixture.
Roll your dough out to about 1/8". Here's how I measure: most thumbs are 1" long (give or take). When I'm rolling out dough and it needs to be thin, I'll look at my thumbnail. It's usually 1/2" since I don't have long nails anymore. That helps me approximate when I'm looking for thickness of 1/4" to 1/8". Your dough should be about 10"-11" by 26".
Let's roll! Starting at the long side, roll up the dough nice and tight. I like to make sure that the end of the roll ends up on the bottom before I cut.
Using a serrated knife, cut your dough into 1" pieces.
Place cut cookies on a cookie sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper. Leave at least 1 1/2" space around your cookies.
Place your cookie sheet into the refrigerator and repeat the process for your second half of the dough.
While dough is chilling, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Bake your first cookie sheet for 30-35 minutes on the middle rack. Make sure to flip your cookie sheet halfway through the bake time for even baking of all cookies. You're looking for your sugar to have caramelized and for the cookies to be firm.
Cool for 5 minutes on the pan before moving the cookies to a cooling rack to completely cool.
Repeat with second cookie sheet.
Makes 36-38 cookies.
Cookies may be frozen once they are cooled. They'll keep for at least a year but they won't last that long once you try one!