Cookies! Mexican Wedding Cookies and Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

Things have been so crazy around here, that we haven't had time to do our last two posts of the San Francisco trip, but they will be coming soon!

Until then, the holiday spirit suddenly whisked me away this morning, and I decided to make a run to the overcrowded grocery store to make my favorite cookies.

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies My husband's family put together a cookbook several years back that included a recipe or two from everyone in the family. This includes an amazing peanut butter cookie recipe from Grams. I LOVE peanut butter cookies and one of my favorite combos is peanut butter and chocolate, of course, so I always try to blend this recipe with chocolate, the last time was choc chip. This time I wanted to do the kiss on it, since, shockingly, you usually only see the kiss cookie with plain cookies. I don't get it ;)

*Photography note, I did not use lights for this, which is why they look a bit different than my normal food shots. I had to cook and shoot by myself, which is different for me :D

Meta helps with the flour sifting

Kisses pushed into the dough

I got distracted making the other cookies that they sat in oven a minute too long, so the tops of the kisses got a bit brown

Jude didn't mind the brown bits on the kisses one bit.

Recipe:

1/2 cp butter 1/2 cp Crisco 2 cps brown sugar 1 cp peanut butter

In Kitchenaid Bowl - Flat beater setting #1 gradually to #6 cream 5 ingredients until light and fluffy

Add 2 eggs

Continue on setting #1 to #4 until eggs blended in well.

Sift 2-1/2 cps flour 1 tspns baking powder 1 tspn baking soda pinch of salt

Sift and add dry ingredients to above on setting #1 until mix absorbs flour. Knead with hands until dough forms a smooth ball.

Form small balls - set on lightly greased cookie sheet - press kiss into middle of ball to semi-flatten it.

Bake 10 minutes in 375 degree oven. These cookies FREEZE well. Yield 100

Mexican Wedding Cookies Christmas always has me wanting Mexican Wedding Cookies. Ever since my step-mother made them when I was in 9th grade. I never found a recipe for them and searched for many years. Finally, 10 years ago, I received a cookie recipe book as a gift and there it was! The recipe I had been looking for all this time. Since then, I have made them almost every year. My husband's family apparently has had them every year since he was 2, but I didn't know that, so when I started making them 5 years ago, I was met with sighs when I excitedly announced what I was making. They were burned out on them.

I still make them every year, but I usually am the only one who eats them. (Yes, the whole batch, heh.) This year, he swears that he just might not be burned out anymore and eat some.

Mexican Wedding Cookies (MWC) are actually a type of Spanish Shortbread cookies called Polvorones. The difference is that they put finely chopped almonds into the MWC as well. They are crumbly-rich of Arab origin but popular in different versions around the world. The melt-in-your-mouth coating is achieved by rolling the cookies in powdered sugar twice-once when warm and again when cool.

What dough should look like when done mixing and before you put in the fridge to cool.

After 3 hours of chilling, roll into balls to put into the oven.

When out of the oven, roll them in sifted powdered sugar for first coat.

Cooling on racks.

Fin! With two coats of sugar.

Recipe 2 cps all-purpose flour 1 tspn baking powder 1/4 tspn salt 1 cp butter, softened 2/3 cup powdered sugar 1 tspn vanilla extract 2 cps finely chopped toasted almonds about 1-1/2 cps sifted powdered sugar, for coating Makes about 2 dozen cookies

1. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powser and salt; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, 2/3 cup powdered sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Stir in flour mixture with 2 cups of toasted pecans or almonds. Cover with plastic wrap and chill 2 to 3 hours or until firm enough to handle.
2. Pre-heat oven to 325 F. Roll teaspoons of chilled dough into 1-inch balls. Arrange, 1 inch apart, on ungreased baking sheets.
3. Bake 20 to 26 minutes, or just until golden. Gently remove cookies from baking sheets. Roll warm cookies in sugar; place on racks to cool. Toll cookies in sugar again when cool. Store in an airtight container at room temperature 1 week; freeze for longer storage.