Mexican Snowballs or Mexican wedding cookies or maybe you know them as Russian tea cakes or butterballs--whatever the name these cookies packed with nuts with a powdered sugar coating --are delightful.
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You might also like Lemon Shortbread Heart Cookies Recipe or Kentucky Butter Cake Cookies with Cake Mix or possibly Best Italian Butter Cookies.
Snowball cookies are popular during the holidays but they are a perfect cookie any time of year.
Here's another great holiday cookie Cinnamon Christmas Cookies.
This is an eggless cookie recipe. If you need more cookies to make without eggs, maybe you have an egg allergy or your chickens are ticked off, try Best Mexican Snowballs.
Maybe not in the heart of summer when warm paws get sticky handling pastries with powdered sugar but any other time surely.
This cookie, tweaked from a friend's recipe, is especially good because it combines lemon and pecans.
About Mexican Snowball Cookies
First of all, these cookies, which don't use eggs, have an ancient history.
Rumor has it that these cookies were first known as Russian Tea Cakes. But in the 1950's around the time of the Cold War and strained relations with Russia, bakers began calling them Mexican Wedding Cookies to avoid mentioning Russia.
In New England, these cookies were often called snowballs or pecan sandies.
Cookie Baking Advice
You may find these baking posts helpful, from Room Temperature Butter for Baking to Salted or Unsalted Butter for Cookies? to Do I Need A Cookie Scoop?, Cookie Size Chart to What Should a Beginner Bake? to Where Can I Buy Sprinkles?, Why is my sugar cookie dough too sticky? and Cookie Holidays.
Ingredients
- Butter
- Confectioner’s sugar
- Lemon zest
- Lemon juice
- Instant lemon pudding mix
- All purpose flour
- Pecans
- Toffee bits
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions
Find and measure ingredients.
Lay them out so you can have a good flow while making the dough.
Grate the lemon zest and set aside–on a piece of wax paper or parchment.
Juice the lemon and set aside.
Hint: You'll want nuts chopped finely for these cookies. That means about an â…›th of an inch in size.
My favorite way to chop nuts is to put them in a resealable bag and pound them with my late grandmother's meat mallet.
If you didn't inherit a meat mallet from your grandmother, a rolling pin will also work.
You can bang on the nuts with a rolling pin or just roll over the bagged nuts repeatedly applying pressure as you go.
I could break out the food processor for these small baking tasks but I find it therapeutic to chop nuts by hand, not sure why.
Substitutions
- Butter - instead of butter, you can use shortening or margarine. The cookies won't be as tasty but the recipe will still work.
- Confectioner's Sugar-There is no substitute here. If you don't have confectioner's sugar or powdered sugar, don't make these until you do.
- Lemon Juice-substitute vanilla extract
Variations
- Pecans - you can use other nuts such as walnuts, pistachios or almonds, just be sure to chop them finely--about an eighth of an inch in size or smaller so they combine well into the cookie dough.
- Lemon Pudding Mix- substitute another flavor like vanilla or pistachio pudding mix or maybe orange.
- Lemon juice/lemon zest - substitute another citrus juice like lime or orange or use vanilla extract.
- Toffee bits-miniature chocolate chips or chopped white chocolate
Equipment
The one tool you really must have for this recipe is the grater.
A grater/zester will turn the lemon peel into fine yellow threads of zest, that will be easily incorporated into the cookie dough.
There's really no other way that I know of to get zest from fruit other than peeling strips of skin away from the pith and then chopping finely.
A Microplane grater is really the best way to get citrus zest. Microplanes are usually around $15. The last one I had lasted for a decade.
The other tools listed below are nice to have but you can make do with other implements.
- Grater
- Citrus reamer (or a sturdy fork)
- Nut chopper (or a meat mallet or a knife or food processor)
- Cookie scoop (or use your hands to roll dough into one-inch balls)
Storage
Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to a week.
Store uncooked cookie dough in a freezer-safe container for up to two months.
These cookie dough freezer trays are great.
Top tip
Let these Mexican Wedding Cookies cool completely before you roll them in confectioner's sugar.
Otherwise the confectioner's sugar will evaporate and leave you with naked cookies instead of lovely little balls of snow.
Be sure to use confectioner's sugar, also known as powdered sugar or 10x sugar.
You'll find it in the store near the brown sugar and it comes in a clear bag usually.
It depends on the recipe and how it's written. For these cookies, my recipe says ½ cup pecans, chopped. Since "chopped" comes after the ingredient, you measure the nuts first then chop them.
If the recipe states "chopped" in front of the nut, then you would chop the nuts first then measure them.
There are lots of ways to chop nuts, drive over them with your car (kidding), chop them on a cutting board with a serrated knife; put nuts in your food processor, chop them in a coffee grinder or spice grinder; smash nuts with a meat mallet or a rolling pin.
Cookie recipes cross geographic lines and are often called by different names, depending on where the cookie is being made.
That's the case with Mexican Wedding Cake cookies or Mexican Snowballs or Butterballs or Russian Tea Cakes or Polvorones as these cookies are all called depending on where in the world you are.
Legend has it that in the US, these cookies were always known as Russian Tea Cakes, until that is the 1950's around the time of the Cold War due to strained relations with Russia. Then people began calling them Mexican Wedding Cake cookies to avoid
In New England, these cookies were also known assnowballs or pecan sandies.
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Recipe
Best Mexican Snowballs
Mexican Snowballs or Mexican wedding cookies or maybe you know them as Russian tea cakes or butterballs--whatever the name these cookies packed with nuts and rolled in confectioner's sugar after baking--are delightful.
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, (two sticks) room temperature
- ¾ cup confectioner’s sugar, divided
- 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice (you'll need at least one lemon)
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 package instant lemon pudding mix, three ounce
- Two cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup pecans, chopped
- ½ cup toffee bits
Instructions
Find and measure ingredients and lay them out so you can have a good flow while making the dough.
Grate the lemon zest and set aside–on a piece of wax paper or parchment.
Juice the lemon.
Chop the nuts.
Beat butter in a large mixing bowl for two to three minutes with a stand mixer or four to five with a hand mixer or until butter turns pale and fluffy.
Add ¼ cup of confectioners sugar to the bowl and beat, starting on low for two minutes. Increase speed to medium after the sugar is combined so you don’t have powdered sugar clouds in your kitchen.
Add lemon juice, zest and instant lemon pudding mix. Beat until combined on low speed.
Add flour and beat until just combined, maybe 30 to 45 seconds. Don’t overmix here.
Stir or mix in the chopped pecans and toffee bits until thoroughly spread throughout the dough.
Turn oven to 350.
While oven is warming up, portion dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet using a #40 scoop.
Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or until the edges are just lightly golden.
Bake 12-15 cookies at a time. These cookies will not spread very much.
Makes 30.
Remove from oven and let rest for two to three minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
Pour remaining ½ cup powdered sugar into a small bowl.
Once completely cool, thoroughly coat each ball in powdered sugar.
Store at room temperature for a week.
Or freeze balls of unbaked dough for up to two months in a freezer safe container.
Notes
Find and measure ingredients and lay them out so you can have a good flow while making the dough.
Grate the lemon zest and set aside–on a piece of wax paper or parchment.
Juice the lemon.
Chop the nuts.
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Nutrition Information
Yield 30 Serving Size 1Amount Per Serving Calories 79Total Fat 3gSaturated Fat 1gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 2gCholesterol 4mgSodium 13mgCarbohydrates 13gFiber 0gSugar 5gProtein 1g
Li
Oh, boy, adding lemon was genius!!! What a delicious twist on a classic cookie recipe!!!