I can remember the first time I tried a Mexican Wedding Cake cookie. If I remember correctly, my mom was baking holiday cookies and got the recipe for them from one of our neighbors. I was an instant fan. I loved the intensely pecan flavor of this cookie and its sugar-coating.
I recently held a vegan cooking (although there was no “cooking” involved) demonstration as part of NEXT Week. I am a Brand Ambassador for NEXT by Athena and the company put on a great event. During NEXT week there were tons of free classes held at the Swimspot store at the Irvine Spectrum… everything from pilates, yoga, Pure Barre classes, to my cooking demonstration. I decided to keep the cooking demonstration easy and made three varieties of my Cookie Dough Bites; PB and C Cookie Dough Bites (click here for the recipe), Mexican Wedding Cake Bites, and Gingerbread Bites.
My kids love my cookie dough bites. Most everyone I know likes to have something sweet from time to time and these are great for those occasions because there really isn’t anything in them that is too “bad.” Yes, you do want to make sure you don’t get too much fat in your diet, but I would MUCH rather have the fat in your diet come from nut butters than animal products. While my version of these Cookie Dough Bites does not have the traditional powdered sugar-coating, you could definitely opt to do so.
Falling back on my simple is best philosophy, these are crazy easy to make and come together in a snap.
The Mexican Wedding Cake Bites are my son’s favorite Cookie Dough Bites, so without further ado…
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COOKIE BASE 1 cup roasted cashew butter ½ cup Somersweeet ** 2 tsp Frontier vanilla flavor *** 1 cup toasted pecans (blended into a meal) ** As an alternative you can use sucanut, coconut sugar, date sugar, or powdered sugar ***DO NOT use vanilla extract. Since these are not cooked, the alcohol in the extract won’t taste good. SUGAR COATING ¼ cup Somersweet ** ¼ tsp cinnamonOn the stove over medium-low, toast the pecans (watch carefully to prevent burning). Once tasted, remove them to cool.
Place the cooled toasted pecans in the food processor and process into a meal.
With a hand blender, cream together the cashew butter, ½ cup Somersweet and vanilla flavor. Once the mixture is creamed, mix in the toasted pecan meal (I use my hands).
Once the mixture is creamed, mix in the toasted pecan meal (I use my hands while wearing non-latex gloves I bought at Costco).
Form the dough into small rounds (about 1Tbs. each). In a separate bowl, combine ¼ cup Somersweet with ¼ tsp. cinnamon. Roll the rounds in the cinnamon/sugar mixture.
Place in an airtight container in the refrigerator to firm-up. The cookies should keep in the fridge for a week.
For a printable version of this recipe click here.
