We didn’t do a lot of baking in our house. Mostly breads, occasionally cakes, but hardly ever cookies.
My friend Kathy makes these wonderful walnut cookies at Christmas and a few years ago we discovered that they’re Mexican Wedding/Christmas cookies, although you can probably find similar cookies in many other cultures.
Anyway, we all love these buttery nutty cookies! The hardest part of making them is shaping the cookies into a crescent shape, but more on that later. For now, here’s the recipe.
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1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temperature
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup finely chopped walnuts (you can substitute pecans, hazalnuts, almonds or even pistachios!)
Preheat your oven to 325°F.
Cream together the butter and 1 cup of the confectioner’s sugar with a mixer. Once the butter and sugar are smoothe, stir in the vanilla and almond extracts.
Add one cup of flour little by little and finish by adding the salt. By now the mixture will be a little stiffer, so add the second cup of flour and the chopped walnuts and mix with a wooden spoon.
Some people roll the dough into balls, but my friend Kathy makes them into little crescents. You do this by making a long rod with the dough and then pinching off a bit at t time. Place that bit on a non-greased cookie sheet and then pinch and curve into a half-moon shape.
Keep the balls/crescents about one inch apart.
Bake at 325°F until light golden brown (about 15 to 20 minutes).
Let the cookies cool a bit, but not entirely.
Place the remaining confectioner’s sugar in a flat dish. Once the cookies have cooled a bit, roll the cookies in the confectioner’s sugar in order to coat them completely. These are delicate cookies, so don’t rush the cooling/coating (unless you want to have a few cook’s treats to try!)
If you make crescents, this recipe should yield about 18 cookies. If you make the balls (about 1 teaspoon of dough for each), it should yield about 3 dozen cookies.
Make sure you have plenty of milk to eat these with! They are delicious.
As for the holidays, here’s some of the special treats coming up this month!
Oooh those are so good! I need to make some. Let’s see if I can motivate myself to! LOL.