The recipe I share with you today also has a story to tell, it’s for make Mexican walnut cookies, also known as polvorones, and these are usually prepared during the Christmas season in Mexico to give to our loved ones.
It happens that in the United States these cookies have been misnamed as «Mexican Wedding Cookies«, name that is not correct because here in Mexico we don’t have any special cookies for weddings. The first time I saw that title I was surprised to see they was talking about our traditional polvorones, and maybe, a more acceptable title would be «Mexican Christmas cookies«, as it is in the holiday season when most are prepared in Mexican homes.
These walnut cookies, although I knew as a child, it was not until some years back ago that I taste them again, thanks to a special person who each year gave us a bag of these treats for Christmas, and as she never gave me the recipe, I had no choice but to experiment to find the balance of flavor and texture that I like.
The term «polvoron» refers to the fact that when bite, these cookies are disrupted and melt in the mouth. They are ideal not only for gift, but also to accompany a cup of hot tea or coffee. I confess that once you taste them, you can not stop of eating.
While there’re who prepare this cookies with icing sugar for both, dough and decorate, I like prepare them with regular sugar, with a result that I love and an even more homemade flavor.
- 180 grams of unsalted softened butter
- 75 grams of sugar
- 300 grams of flour
- 100 grams of chopped walnuts or pecans
- ½ teaspoon of baking powder
- 1 teaspoon of vainilla or almond extract
- a pinch of salt
- ½ cup of sugar for decorate
- Preheat oven to 200 ºF and place waxed paper on a baking sheet, then lightly grease it.
- In a bowl, using a mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
- Add the vanilla or almond extract and mix again until blended.
- Then add the flour and a pinch of salt and knead with your hands until get a dough that remain attached when squeeze with your fingers. If it's hard to unite, add another teaspoon of vanilla extract.
- To finish preparing our dough, add the chopped nuts and mix again.
- With the resulting dough make balls of two centimeters of diameter. If you have time, put them in a ziploc bag and let them rest in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
- Press each ball lightly, to flatten slightly and place them in the cookie sheet with two centimeters of separation between each.
- Bake for 20 minutes until bottoms look lightly browned.
- Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes before toss the cookies in sugar and then place them on a wire rack and let them cool completely.
Good to know that these cookies can also be baked in a toaster oven, using the same temperature specified in the recipe, and preheating for about 7 minutes before placing the cookies and counting thereafter the 20 minutes required.
Finally, these walnut cookie dough can be freeze, into balls, and in a hermetically sealed bag. When you be ready to bake, simply leave them at room temperature for 30 minutes before putting in the oven.
So, I like to bake half of the resulting dough for this Mexican walnut cookies in the toaster oven and freeze the other half, ready for the next batch. Now, if I’m going to bake all the dough, I prefer turn on the conventional oven.
Bon Appetite! and Merry Christmas!
You need to put cups and spoon measures don’t know kilos and tramps ‘
Maybe you need to consider buying a scale for your kitchen, they are more accurate than cups and spoons.
Mary soco, acabo de toparme con tu deliciosa receta y lo único que no me gusto son las medidas, nos es muy difícil seguirla ya que se tendría que comprar una balanza cómo recomiendas arriba y en estos tiempos además de cara, es muy estorboza tenerla por las dimensiones de las cocinas modernas, sobre todo para ser guardada el resto del año ya que casi todas las recetas vienen con tazas y cucharadas
Hola Lupita,
En términos de repostería la precisión es bastante necesaria para dar buenos resultados. De echo, muchas de las recetas en los viejos recetarios de mi familia están en kg y litros.
En el sentido de balanzas y básculas, la verdad es que hay para todos los gustos y precios. Justo la semana pasada murió mi báscula digital de más de 7 años y he comprado otra que apenas mide 20×20 cm y cabe perfectamente en un cajón y sobra espacio. Del precio, solo 257 pesos en Amazon. Una vez que la tengas, verás que la vas a usar más y más.
Ahora que si no puedes hacerte de una báscula, siempre tienes la opción de usar Google para buscar la conversión de los ingredientes a tazas, aunque con la advertencia de que no todas esas tablas de conversión son iguales.
Saludos!
Hola.
Quiero hacer esta receta, se ven geniales.
Tengo una duda, la lista de ingredientes menciona nueces, pero en las instrucciones no encontré en qué momento agregarlas.
¿Me está faltando algo o faltó esa parte?
Hola Alonso,
Paso olvidado al escribir. Ya lo he corregido. Se agregan a la masa antes de formar las bolitas.
Saludos!
Hi I was wondering if I could substitute the walnuts for almonds :)
Hi Denise,
I didn’t try it, but I think almonds could work fine. Substitute walnuts with pecans is also a good idea.