Sunday, December 14, 2014

Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies



Let the kids grab the showy frosted cookies or the chocolate bombs. The adults will love these Mexican Wedding Cake cookies, snowballs of nuts, butter and powder sugar. Delicious!

This recipe was originally published in the New York Times. What is particularly nice here is using the food processor to combine the nuts and butter.

Ingredients

1/2 cup pecan halves
2 1/2 cups powder sugar
a pinch of salt
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup AP flour

Using your food processor, pulse together the nuts, salt, and 1 cup of the sugar until the nuts are finely ground. Cut the butter into pieces and add to the processor as the machine is running. When the mixture is smooth, add the vanilla. Add the flour and pulse to combine.

Place the dough in a bowl, tightly cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate 3 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Scoop the dough with a spoon and form 1 inch balls. This looks small, but the cookies will spread when they bake! Place the balls 1 1/2 inch apart on parchment covered cookies sheets.

Bake 15 minutes or until the cookies begin to brown. Allow the cookies cool on the pan for 2 minutes. Then, using large spoons and working one cookie at a time, carefully nudge a cookie onto a spoon and then roll it in the remaining powder sugar.

Enjoy!

Lil Bitty Shortbread Bites

I found this recipe at the Land O Lakes web site. It makes fun and tasty little cookies for the holiday or any time you want a little treat

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 tsp. multi colored nonpareils

Line an 8x8 inch pan with plastic wrap, leaving overhang to use as a handle.

Cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla. Add the flour and salt and mix until well combined. Stir in 2 teaspoons of the nonpareils.

Pat the dough into your prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining 1 teaspoon of nonpareils evenly over the dough; pat them in lightly. Cover the dough and refrigerate the dough overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Remove the dough from the pan by using the plastic wrap handles. Cut the dough into squares of about 1/2 inch. Place the squares on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake for 13 to 15 minutes, or until the cookies just begin to brown.

Cute!


Pictured here are Lil Bitty Shortbread Bites and Mexican Wedding Cakes. Yum!