Mexican Cookies Recipe (Mexican Wedding) - The Foodie Affair (2024)

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What is the story behind Mexican wedding cookies? ›

History of Mexican Wedding Cookies

As Spanish colonizers brought these recipes to Mexico, they seamlessly integrated into the local culinary landscape. The cookie's association with weddings stems from its sweet symbolism of happiness, unity, and the joyful occasions surrounding matrimony.

Italian wedding cookies typically contain almonds or hazelnuts and are flavored with almond extract, vanilla extracts and spices like cinnamon or anise. Mexican wedding cookies, on the other hand, use a combination of ground nuts such as pecans and walnuts, as well as butter, sugar and sometimes chocolate chips.

Over-cooking is the most common reason for dry cookies. They can also be dry if you used too much flour. Be sure to measure your flour correctly.

Mexican wedding cookies go by many different names: snowballs, Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding cakes, polvorones, and more. I did some digging on their history while I was working on this recipe, and it turns out, we don't really know where they originated.

In traditional Mexican culture, the groom sometimes presents an ornate box with 13 gold coins to the bride, coins representing Jesus and his disciples as well as his commitment to provide for his family. They're sometimes given to the groom by the padrinos, and they're blessed by the priest during the ceremony.

Whether you call them Mexican wedding cookies, snowball cookies, Russian tea cakes, or polvorones, one thing is certain: they are a total classic! And for good reason! Their crumbly, shortbread-like texture and their buttery, toasty, nutty flavor are completely irresistible.

Here's a much better recipe from The New Complete Book of Mexican Cooking: 1 cup flour; 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar; 1 cup unsalted butter; pinch of salt; 1 cup pecans, finely chopped; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Mexican wedding cookies can flatten for two reasons: if they are overmixed, or if they are baked without chilling. They should be mixed just until the dough comes together in a ball. I recommend chilling the dough for at least one hour so that the butter gets very cold and the cookies don't spread in the oven.

If your cookies repeatedly turn out flat, no matter the recipe, chances are your oven is too hot. Here's what's happening. The butter melts super quickly in a too-hot oven before the other ingredients have firmed up into a cookie structure. Therefore, as the butter spreads so does the whole liquidy cookie.

If the butter is too cold, it won't be soft enough to bind the sugar, flour and nuts, making it crumbly and difficult to work with. Too warm and the dough might be greasy and difficult to roll into balls. Soften the butter to just cooler than room temperature and the dough should be perfect.

Can I use butter instead of shortening in cookie recipe? ›

Cookies made with butter are usually crispier than chewy cookies made with shortening, but the flavor is richer with butter. So a one-to-one butter swap will work great if you need a shortening substitute for cookies. In cakes and breads, the substitution is rarely noticeable when using shortening vs. butter.

Traditionally, these sweet cookies are made with finely chopped nuts like walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts or almonds, though this can vary depending on the recipe's origins.

🎡The Carnival Cookie🎡 A massive, buttery-soft sugar cookie topped with. smooth vanilla buttercream icing and garnished. generously with rainbow sprinkles.

It is typically a tradition in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio. Cookie tables are included in primarily Italian, Polish or Catholic wedding receptions. Other groups that also have cookie tables or cookie platters are the Greeks, Slovaks, Serbian Orthodox, Austrian/Hungarian, and Scandinavians.

Spanish polvorones originated in the 16th century in Andalucía, where an abundance of oak acorns from the region's forests made possible the proliferation of pig farms, and brought fame for the quality of their pork products; that in turn, promoted the use of lard in their local cuisine, and specifically, in baked ...

4. El Lazo. A significant Mexican wedding tradition is el lazo, which translates to "the lasso." It is part of a unity ceremony representing the newlywed couple's union. The lazo is typically a decorative silk cord, or a large rosary draped around the couple during the ceremony.

They likely originated among European immigrants during the Great Depression when couples could not afford a wedding cake. Close friends and family would step in to bake cookies instead. Many of the cookies were, and are, made from scratch using favorite family recipes.

The earliest examples of Christmas cookies in the United States were brought by the Dutch in the early 17th century. Due to a wide range of cheap imported products from Germany between 1871 and 1906 following a change to importation laws, cookie cutters became available in American markets.