Finally! Mexican Wedding Cookies

Ok, I don’t think I need to go back over my decision making in picking Mexican Wedding Cookies to make for the rehearsal dinner for Brooke’s wedding. In case you missed it or you need a refresher, look at Chocolate Caramel Slices, County Line, and Everything Nice. So I’ll go ahead and get straight to the recipe for these wonderfully sweet and crunchy cookies. Before I start, I used the recipe from the Café Pasqual’s cookbook from the restaurant of the same name. In the book, the recipe is for Half Moon Cookies and says that it makes 12 large ones. I prefer the typical miniature Mexican Wedding Cookies in the circle shape, especially for the occasion of being served after lots of barbeque when people don’t want too much (or if they do, they can always grab more). When I made them into balls a little over the size of a quarter, I came out with 55-60, so if you make them small enough, you can stretch them a long way.

Mexican Wedding Cookies

Adapted from Café Pasqual’s Cookbook

1 cup (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar (you might need more depending on how much you roll them in afterwards)
2 tsp vanilla extract
¾ cup finely chopped pecans (I toasted mine in the oven until dark brown, then chopped)
¾ tsp salt
2 ¼ cup all purpose flour
A large pinch of cinnamon (this was not in the Café Pasqual’s recipe, but in one I found on epicurious.com. I think I should have put another pinch because you could barely notice the cinnamon at the end, it would have been nice just a tad stronger)

Preheat oven to 375 F. Combine butter and 2 ½ cups sugar in bowl. Using whisk, wooden spoon or electric mixer with paddle attachment set on high (words of advice: yall probably know this, but don’t set to high immediately when mixing powdered sugar, it will go everywhere. I speak from experience), cream together until well incorporated. Add vanilla, pecans, salt, flour, cinnamon, and beat until blended.

Lightly grease baking sheet(I put a piece of foil onto a baking sheet and had no problems with cookies sticking). Bake until light brown on bottom, 12-15 minutes.

Let cool slightly. After about 5-10 minutes, when warm but not hot, roll in remaining sugar to coat completely. Now the directions say to roll again when cool, but I found that there were only a few I needed to do this with, that looked a little lacking in sugar. Another thing: mine were very crunchy (delicious, nonetheless) so I’m wondering if I had put more butter they might be a little more moist. I’m a person who prefers cookies underbaked than perfectly baked, but with Mexican Wedding Cookies you can’t really do that, as you have to roll them around in powdered sugar and they need to be sturdy and not melting in your hands. Maybe next time I’ll try it…how could you go wrong adding more butter to cookies?

Makes about 60 little cookies. (You can see the already rolled ones on the left and the waiting-to-be-rolled ones on the right)