Mexican Wedding Day Cookies

Mexican wedding cookies can be made crescent, round or flat.

Mexican wedding cookies are crisp, buttery, melt-in-your mouth flour and nut based cookies. They are usually either small round balls or crescent shaped and are covered in white powdery sugar. As such they are known for their messiness. Though they are named Mexican, the cookie is found in cultural cuisines all around the world.

Mexican Wedding Cookies

Though these small powdery cookies are known as Mexican Wedding Cookies in the U.S., they have no such name inside of Mexico. The Mexican term for the cookie is simply biscochito meaning small biscuit. The cookies are found present at most traditional Mexican weddings, though not in lieu of the cake as it is often believed. The cookies are merely part of a dessert buffet table or dessert side dish. The main dessert at most Mexican weddings is a cake which traditionally is soaked in rum. However, at most modern Mexican weddings, cakes not unlike those in the United States (fondant covered tiers) are served.

Alternate Names

In the United States the cookies go either by the name Mexican wedding cookies, Mexican wedding cakes, Russian teacakes, pecan sandies, moldy mice, Swedish teacakes, Danish almond cookies, Napoleon hats, Finnish butter strips or butterballs. In Spain they are known as polvorones. As the various names in the United States point out, the cookie is neither native to Mexico or the United States, Sweden, Russia, Finland, Denmark, Spain or France. The cookies appear in various shapes and sizes all around the world. As such, it is impossible to pinpoint from where the cookie first originated.

Recipes

Though the cookies go by different names all around the world, they maintain the same basic ingredients. Butter, wheat flour, powdered sugar (confectioner's), vanilla and a type of ground nut--either almond, pecan, hazelnut or walnut. After mixing the dough, the cookies are either rolled into balls, shaped into crescents or pressed flat into disks depending on the region.

United States

Much speculation has been put into discovering why the term Mexican wedding cookie came about in the United States. The term first appeared in cookbooks in the 1950s replacing the name of the universally known "Russian teacake." Both Mexican wedding cookies and Russian teacakes are virtually the same thing, therefore the name change is attributed to the strained relations between the United States and Russia during the Cold War. Similar to the American campaign following September 11 to change the names of French fries to freedom fries, the switch from Russian to Mexican illustrates the effect world affairs can have on cultural aspects.

Cookie Occasions

Aside from appearing in the dessert buffet at a Mexican wedding, the cookies are usually served during Christmas times. The holiday tradition spans from Mexico to the United States and Europe. However, there is no rule for when you can eat or not eat the cookies, therefore they can be made and enjoyed throughout the year.

References

• The Food Timeline: Mexican Wedding Cakes