Facts About Mexican Wedding Cookies
Mexican wedding cookies or "pastelitos de boda" are traditional features at Mexican weddings, served during dessert or given as favors at the end of the celebration. They are a kind of small, shortbread cookies that seem to melt in your mouth, with their sweet, sugary coating. Mexican wedding cookies are popular delicacies not only for weddings but also for Christmas, christenings and other holidays and festive occasions. People often reserve this rich and expensive food for special occasions.
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Ingredients
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Mexican wedding cookies use with the usual cookie dough, but what makes them special and truly delicious is that they contain ground nuts, such as walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans or almonds and confectioner's sugar. The secret to this great tasting dessert is to use pure vanilla extract and high-quality butter. According to several cookbooks and food history references, Mexican wedding cookies are a universal holiday treat.
History
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According to foodtimeline.org, food historians trace the cookies' origins to Medieval Arab's sugar-rich cuisine, which Europeans quickly adopted: "This sweet culinary tradition was imported by the Moors to Spain, diffused and assimilated throughout Europe, then introduced to the New World---and specifically to Mexico---by 16th-century Spanish explorers" as "biscochitos" or "biscochos." Their appearance in American cookbooks was much later though, in the 1950s.
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Other Names
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The Mexican wedding cookies are known by many other names, including Spanish wedding cookies or "mantecados," Russian tea cake, Southern pecan butterball, Italian butter nut, snowdrop, snowball and Viennese sugar ball. Some people call them "polvorones" or "biscochitos."
Significance
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The traditional ingredients of a Mexican wedding cookie, the richest, highest quality butters, choicest nuts and finest sugars, represent a rich, new life for the newlyweds and a marriage full of blessings. The white sugar coating also signifies purity as well as the beginning of a new, sweet life together.
Favors
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Place Mexican cookies in a small net (two to four pieces each), tie them with ribbon and serve to wedding guests. When given as favors, tuck the same two to four pieces in a small, clear box and tie with a ribbon printed with the wedding details (bride and groom's names and wedding date) or a romantic wedding message. These desserts or favors are a wonderful and sweet way to thank guests for sharing in your special day.
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References
- Photo Credit doughnut with sugar image by Maria Brzostowska from Fotolia.com
