Name: Mexican Wedding Cakes
Ingredients: 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter; ½ cup powdered sugar, sifted, plus powdered sugar for coating the cookies; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; 2¼ cups all-purpose flour; ¾ teaspoon salt; ¼ cup finely chopped pecans

Mexican Wedding Cakes

Marla Bakery, Amy Brown

Amy Brown was in the kitchen as soon as she could crawl, pulling bowls out of cabinets. At age 6, she compiled her first menu for a Mother’s Day breakfast, comprising everything she knew how to make (including Top Ramen). Using the Betty Crocker Junior Cook Book, she threw her first dinner party when she was 8 and dove headlong into a lifetime of cooking and baking—which has included these nutty, sugar-dusted cookie classics. The recipe came from Amy’s grandmother, Maxine Brown, a true Southern lady born and raised in Rio Frio, West Texas. They were a staple of Maxine’s Christmas cookie repertoire, packed between layers of waxed paper in old Danish cookie tins. When one batch had dropped barely below the halfway mark, she would start baking the next so as not to run out. She often served the cookies with afternoon coffee, which she referred to as her “demitasse.” And though the coffee may have been Maxwell House scooped from a can in the freezer, it and her beloved bite-sized cakes were served on the finest china if anyone stopped by for a visit. Maxine called these cookies Russian Tea Cakes, but Amy leans into the more familiar, calling them Mexican Wedding Cakes at her pastry shop Marla SR in Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square.

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
½ cup powdered sugar, sifted, plus powdered sugar for coating the cookies
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ cup finely chopped pecans

Instructions

In a bowl, mix together the butter, sugar and vanilla until blended. Sift in the flour and salt and stir until combined. Stir in the pecans. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or overnight.
Preheat a standard oven to 400°F or a convection oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Scoop the dough into tablespoon-size pieces and roll into 1-inch balls. Place the balls 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until set and just starting to turn golden, 10–12 minutes.
Remove the cookies from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. While still warm, roll 1 cookie at a time in a bowl of powdered sugar. When the cookies are cool, roll them in sugar again. Makes about 4 dozen cookies