Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Mexican Wedding Balls

This week's baking.. Perfect for the holidays! (and yum!)



Ingredients:
* 1 cup butter, room temperature
* 2 cups icing sugar
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 2 cups all purpose flour
* 1 cup pecans, toasted, coarsely ground
* 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preparation:
Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add 1/2 cup icing sugar and vanilla; beat until well blended. Beat in flour, then pecans. Divide dough in half; form each half into ball. Wrap separately in plastic; chill until cold, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk remaining 1 1/2 cups icing sugar and cinnamon in pie dish to blend. Set cinnamon sugar aside.

Working with half of chilled dough, roll dough by 2 teaspoonfuls between palms into balls. Arrange balls on heavy large baking sheet, spacing 1/2 inch apart. Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom and just pale golden on top, about 18 minutes. Cool cookies 5 minutes on baking sheet. Gently toss warm cookies in cinnamon sugar to coat completely. Transfer coated cookies to rack and cool completely. Repeat procedure with remaining half of dough. (Cookies can be prepared 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature; reserve remaining cinnamon sugar.)

When balls are cool roll a second time in icing sugar. Makes about 4 dozen

I had actually made them for a cookie exchange with a few friends... Here are the resulting goodies I wound up with!

1 comment:

  1. Yum indeed! Those are one of my favorite cookies to make (my recipe's a tiny bit different and goes by the name Italian Wedding Cookies but it's really similar, and really good). Happy holidays!

    ReplyDelete