Powdered sugar-coated wedding cookies, named for their appearances at wedding gatherings around the world, are a welcome addition to any celebration. They also make fantastic gifts, whether for holiday cookie boxes or a homemade Valentine's Day token of love. Sometimes they go by other names (polvorones, wedding cakes) and have many sweet cousins. Italian wedding cookies, for example, are often made with almonds. With walnuts or pecans, they could be called Russian tea cakes or snowballs. Ellen Ramos, the talented baker behind Highland Park's popular Santa Canela, likes to use walnuts for her Mexican wedding cookies and then adds a curveball of pumpkin spice that gives her cookies a comforting finish.
You can use any pumpkin spice blend from your favorite market, but Ramos also shared the recipe for her special spice blend. In addition to cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, black pepper, and ginger, he uses powdered burnt corn husks (a good way to use up corn husks after unwrapping the tamales), which adds a subtly smoky note to the cookies. But even if you skip the corn husk powder, the pumpkin spice will make it impossible to stop eating your cookies.
See how Ramos made the cookies when he came to Times Test Kitchen to show us the recipe.
