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Knocking batter out of the ballpark
Photo by Lynn Kessel
These Mexican Wedding Cookies are classic melt-in-the-mouth desserts. They're light and buttery, flavored with finely chopped walnuts, pecans and a subtle hint of orange peel. Roll them in confectioner's sugar while they're still warm for a powdery-textured coating.
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Published: October 14, 2009
I think I've made every baking mistake there is to make at one time or another.
Let's see … using baking soda instead of baking powder; forgetting to set the oven timer; adding yolks when the recipe called for egg whites; and producing lopsided cakes. Each disaster reminded me to slow down and focus more.
Last week, I made Mexican wedding cookies. These hand-formed, shortbread-type buttery cookies go by many names: Russian tea cakes, Sandies, Bride's cakes, Snowballs and more.
Encouraged by my triumphant results on the first batch, I got to work assembling the ingredients for a second.
I combined the dry ingredients and set them aside. Next, I creamed the sugar with two sticks of butter and, without thinking, added the sugar to the flour mixture, instead of the bowl with the butter.
"Let's just see what happens," I thought, forging ahead with the recipe. "How harmful could it be to skip the cream-butter-and-sugar instructions?"
Actually, very.
A few minutes before the cookies were "done," I nervously looked through the oven window. My adorable buttons of dough were spreading like pancakes.
It was the darn butter blunder that caused the spread.
I learned when a cookie or cake recipe asks you to "cream the butter and sugar," what you are doing is whipping air into the butter, using the crystals of sugar to scrape and build tiny bubbles that will expand later in the oven, when the heat causes the water to steam and enlarge the bubbles.
Most cookies call for butter at room temperature.
Since I'm a spur-of-the-moment cookie baker, I don't always have time to wait an hour or two for it to soften. While researching my latest snafu, I found this helpful this tip: You can warm the sugar to soften cold butter.
This bypasses the need to soften butter in advance. First microwave the sugar for about two minutes or just long enough to warm the granules. During mixing, the sugar holds enough heat to warm the butter to room temperature.
MEXICAN WEDDING CAKES
2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon orange zest, finely grated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees.
Grease two baking sheets. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the walnuts, pecans and 2 tablespoons of the flour. Process until the nuts are finely ground, about 30 seconds. Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl. Add the remaining flour and the salt and combine, stirring well.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, use the paddle attachment to beat the butter and sugar at medium-high speed until light, about 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in the orange zest and vanilla extract. At low speed, add the flour-nut-mixture and mix until combined.
Form the dough into
Place the confectioner's sugar in a pie plate or shallow bowl. While the cookies are warm, dredge their tops in the confectioner's sugar until well-coated. It melts a little.
Transfer the dusted cookies to a wire rack and cool completely. Sift the remaining sugar over the tops of the cookies before serving.
Makes about 4 dozen cookies.
Source: Adapted from "The Good Cookie" by Tish Boyle
Lynn Kessel can be reached at lkessel@mac.com. For more of her recipes, visit southshore.TBO.com and enter the search words Lynn Kessel or look for her blog at www.lynnkessel.blogspot.com.
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