🍪Mexican Wedding Cookies (Polvorones): An Easy Homemade Recipe

What are Mexican wedding cookies?

They're little balls of buttery shortbread dough packed with finely chopped pecans, baked just until the bottoms turn golden, and coated in powdered sugar while they're still warm. The texture is the whole point: not crunchy, not chewy, just tender cookies that crumble and melt on your tongue. That's where the Spanish name comes from, too. Polvorón comes from polvo, which means dust, and that's almost what they turn into when you bite them.

In Mexico they're also called bolitas de nuez, little nut balls, and in a lot of families they're the cookie for big occasions: the dessert table at a wedding, the posadas, December cookie swaps, or the tray you bring to grandma's house. They're one of those recipes you learn by watching, with your hands covered in powdered sugar.

Why are they called Mexican wedding cookies?

The English name comes from their reputation as a wedding cookie: in Mexico it's very common to see them on the dessert table at weddings and other big celebrations. In U.S. cookbooks and bakeries you'll also find them as snowballs, thanks to that powdered sugar coat, and there's a nearly identical cookie called Russian tea cakes. If someone hands you either one, it's a close cousin of your polvorones.

Their roots go back to the Spanish polvorón, a crumbly cookie that's a Christmas staple in Spain. In Mexico the recipe took its own path: it's usually made with butter, loaded with nuts and finished with powdered sugar.

One heads-up: Mexican bakeries also sell something called polvorones, but those are bigger, flatter cookies, sometimes in bright colors. This recipe is for the little powdered sugar nut balls.

How do you make Mexican wedding cookies at home?

The full recipe, with amounts and steps, is in the recipe card on this page. These are the little details that separate a cookie that melts in your mouth from one that could break a tooth:

• •Softened butter, never melted: it should be at room temperature and give when you press it. Melted butter makes the balls spread flat in the oven.
• •Powdered sugar in the dough, not granulated: it's what gives polvorones their fine, sandy texture.
• •Chop the nuts very fine: big pieces make the balls crack when you roll them. Toasting them first adds a lot of flavor.
• •Don't overmix: stop as soon as the dough comes together. Overworked dough bakes up tough.
• •Golden on the bottom, pale on top: that's when they're done. If the tops are browning, they've gone too far.
• •Roll them twice: once while warm, so the sugar melts slightly and sticks, and again once they're cool, for that snowy white finish.

simple ingredients

6

oven temperature

350°F

in the oven, until golden on the bottom

12 to 15 min

from one batch

3 to 4 dozen

What nuts are best for Mexican wedding cookies?

Pecans are the most common choice in Mexico, where they're simply called nuez, and they give the cookies that toasty, homey flavor. Some families use walnuts (nuez de Castilla), which are a little more bitter, and you'll also see versions made with almonds or peanuts. Any of them works as long as you chop them fine and keep the same amount.

Want them nut-free? Just leave the nuts out and follow the recipe as written. They come out simpler but just as tender. And for a little holiday touch, stir a pinch of ground cinnamon into the powdered sugar you use for rolling.

How long do Mexican wedding cookies last?

Stored in an airtight container at room temperature, away from humidity, they keep well for about a week. To get a head start on the holidays, freeze the baked cookies before their second sugar coating; thaw them at room temperature and give them a final roll in powdered sugar right before serving.

For gifting, layer them in a tin or box with wax paper between the layers. A box of homemade polvorones is the kind of Christmas gift people always appreciate.

What do you serve with polvorones?

Something warm. The classic pairing is a frothy cup of Mexican hot chocolate, whisked with a molinillo, or a mug of café de olla sweetened with piloncillo and cinnamon. At posadas they share the table with ponche and buñuelos, and at weddings they sit right alongside the rest of the dessert spread.

If you're giving them as a gift, pair them in a box with a tablet of Mexican drinking chocolate or a few packs of Mexican cookies. It's the kind of detail that tastes like home.

Where can you buy Mexican polvorones in the U.S.?

No time to bake, or craving the ones from the tiendita back home? Packaged polvorones are the classic shortcut: Tía Rosa polvorones, Gamesa Polvorones con Nuez and the tube of Marinela Polvorones. They're the same brands sold in Mexico, and they're perfect with an afternoon cafecito.

MexGoodies carries them as original Mexican products, along with the rest of the cookie and packaged pan dulce aisle, and ships anywhere in the U.S. in 3 to 7 days (Canada too). Baking your own batch? Add some Mexican drinking chocolate to your order so you have something to dunk them in.

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