Preheat the oven to 180C/gas 4 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Scatter the pecans over one of the baking sheets and bake for 5 mins until slightly toasted. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, then pulse in a food processor until the pecans are ground into a coarse meal.

Put 100g of the sugar, the butter and 1/2 tsp salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 mins. Add the flour and pecan meal, and mix until combined into a dough.

Divide the dough into 40 pieces, then roll each piece into a ball. Arrange 20 dough balls on each baking sheet, then bake for 15 mins until the bottoms of the cookies are golden. Remove from the oven, leave to cool on the sheets for 5 mins, then dip the cookies in the remaining powdered sugar. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.