Pecan Cookies (Mexican Wedding Cookies or Polvorones)
This is an easy cookie to make that is made with ground pecans and generously dusted with powdered sugar.Based on a recipe by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking, Bantam Books,1967, pastelitos de boda (Bride's Cookies), p 294.
Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups unbleached flour
- 1/2 cup sifted confectioner's sugar
- pinch salt
- 1 cup pecans chopped fine
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup sweet butter softened, unsalted margarine substitutes fine
- confectioner's sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Place oven racks to divide oven into thirds. Preheat to 350 °F.
- In large bowl of stand mixer, combine flour, all dry ingredients. Stir in vanilla. Add butter and mix until mixture is uniform and forms a ball.
- Form dough into two equal log shaped cylinders. Cut each into 12 equal pieces. With each piece first form a ball then press to form a patty. Use two cookie sheets. Evenly arrange 12 patties on each cookie sheet. Place cookie sheets in oven. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, rotating pans after 15 minutes. Cookies will be delicately brown when done.
- Remove cookies to wire rack to cool. Dust thickly with confectioner's sugar.
Notes
Try toasting the pecans before chopping.