Mexican Wedding Cookies

Buttery soft, melt in your mouth, these easy Mexican wedding cookies are the perfect treat with a cup of tea. Step-by-step photos help you make these scrumptious cookies. Dunked in powdered sugar twice and full of pecans these cookies have the best flavor and texture! 

Also known as Russian tea cakes or snowballs these Mexican wedding cookies are an easy cookie recipe everyone loves. They're soft, buttery, and shortbread-like. Melts in your mouth. As if I didn't already have an addicting shortbread recipe (my brown butter shortbread).

The cookies are simple to make and the recipe makes a generous amount due to the small size of the cookies. I kept the recipe smaller, but you can easily double the recipe for more cookies.

One of the reasons we keep these cookies small is to ensure there is a good powdered sugar to cookie ratio.

This is a perfect cookie recipe for Christmas time. I love to make a box of cookies for friends and include all different textures and flavors. Some of my favorites are Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies, Chewy Lemon Cookies, and Peanut Butter M&M cookies.

Let's get to the recipe.

What are the Ingredients for Mexican Wedding Cookies?

Just seven pantry staples are needed to create these cookies.

• Pecans. Some recipes call for finely chopped pecans, I prefer to chop the pecans into two different sizes. This helps create a great texture throughout the whole cookie and a nice crunch. I prefer to do this in the food processor for ease, just dump the first part of pecans blend into a fine crumb, dump those out and add the last pecans and pulse until thicker chopped pecan size.
• Flour. All-Purpose/ Plain Flour. This is a shortbread-like cookie so you need flour for that iconic texture.
• Salt. Just a pinch helps balance out the flavors. I never omit salt in my baked goods.
• Unsalted Butter. The butter needs to be slightly softened not as soft as I would use in most other cookie recipes like my Chewy White Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
• Sugar. Some recipes call for granulated sugar but I prefer to use powdered/ confectioners sugar to create that extra soft, light texture. Confectioners sugar is actually mixed with a bit of cornstarch/ cornflour that helps create the beautiful cookie crumb. In my chocolate chip cookies, I actually add cornstarch directly because of the great role it plays in cookies.
• Vanilla Extract. It's important to use the real stuff, I truly do believe there is a big difference between imitation and real vanilla extract. It's worth the money.
• Almond Extract. Just a smidge helps create great flavor. If almond is not your jam just omit it from the recipe.

How do you make Mexican Wedding Cookies?

Preheat the oven to 325F/ 163C and line a baking sheets with a Silpat liner or parchment paper.

In a food processor blend half of the pecans into a fine crumb, pour into a clean bowl, then add remaining pecans and blend for just a few seconds to break the pieces into medium-small chopped pecans.

Add to the fine crumb pecans.

Add the flour and salt to the crushed pecans and whisk to combine.

In a large bowl with a handheld mixer or bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the vanilla and almond extract, mixing to combine.

Gently mix in the dry ingredients, stop mixing when it starts to clump up.

Use your hands or a spatula to gently press the mixture together.

Using a tablespoon scoop the dough then roll into balls. Place two inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool on the baking tray for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

Let cookies cool for an additional 20 minutes then roll in a deep dish filled with remaining powdered sugar.

Let the cookies cool completely then roll in confectioners sugar again. You can see below the second layer of powdered sugar really helps create that classic snowball, Russian tea cake, Mexican wedding cookie look.

Can you freeze the cookies?

Most all cookies are great candidates for freezing. These cookies are no different. The only thing I would potentially expect to do is roll them in sugar again once you have thawed them.

To freeze the cookies make sure they have cooled completely, then transfer to a freezer-safe bag.

To thaw the cookies let them sit at room temperature for a few hours.

Check out this post on my Cookie Baking Tips

For more delicious pecan recipes try my Pecan Pie Cheesecake or Pecan Laceys, both absolutely delicious desserts perfect for a party! Hayley has the most perfect looking Pecan Pralines!

★★★★★ Please let me know if you make this recipe by leaving a star rating and comment below!

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