Some call these melt-in-your-mouth cookies, Russian Tea Cakes, Snowballs but I grew up knowing them as Mexican Wedding Cookies. They require just a few ingredients, a little bit of time, and taste so good. Because we dust the finished cookie with powdered sugar, they seem to dissolve when you eat them.
Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for coating baked cookies
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting hands
1 cup pecans, chopped into small pieces
Using an electric mixer, cream the butter on low speed. Add the sugar to the butter and mix until it is smooth. Next, add the vanilla, scraping down the bowl as necessary.
Gradually add the flour, a half cup at a time, with the mixer on low speed.
Add the pecans last and mix this by hand with a silicone spatula.
With a big spoon, remove a tablespoon of dough at a time and with floured hands, shape into balls. Some recipes shape the dough into crescent moons. You could also use the bottom of a glass to press the balls into flat rounds.
Continue to dust hands with flour as you make more cookies.
Place onto a prepared cookie sheet. I prefer a Silpat liner, but parchment paper on a cookie sheet works great too.
Preheat oven to 275 degrees and bake for 40 minutes.
The really do not look that different after they are cooked since they do not brown very much at all. The low temperature and long baking time merely dry the cookie out and makes them crunchy.
When the cookies have cooled enough to handle but still warm, roll in confectioners sugar or use a sifter to dust the cookies with sugar.