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These gluten free Mexican wedding cookies, also known as Russian tea cakes and snowball cookies, are super tender butter cookies, made with chopped nuts and always covered in powdered sugar.
Why this recipe works
Mexican wedding cookies are somewhat fragile, compared to a classic chocolate chip cookie, for example. They tend to crumble, since they're really a type of shortbread cookie, and are meant to be delicate.
This recipe is special because it makes cookies that are properly fragile, and really do melt in your mouth with that beautiful buttery taste. But they're never dry, even with all that powdery sugar everywhere.
They're not neat and tidy cookies, but that's part of their charm. Imagine 3 of them perched on top of the pile in a holiday cookie box filled with all sorts of other colors and styles of cookies.
A dream holiday cookie box for me would have a handful of these gluten free Russian tea cakes/snowball cookies, just 2 gluten free gingerbread men (or women!), some of our other best gluten free cookies, but at least one gorgeous gluten free rainbow cookie. So beautiful right next to the snowballs!
Expert tips
Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about these amazing buttery delight gluten free snowball cookies! Much like the whipped gluten free shortbread cookies that we made the other week, these incredibly simple cookies are a mixture of butter, flour/starch, and sugar, but this time we're adding finely chopped nuts to the mix.
They still melt in your mouth, though, since the nuts should be very finely chopped. I chop mine in a miniature food processor or a blender.
Be sure not to continue grinding until you have a flour, as you want the nuts to provide a bit of texture and not to completely disappear into the batter.
Use the right nuts
When I use mostly raw pecans to make these Mexican wedding cookies, I grind the nuts a little more coarsely since pecans are such a soft nut. When I use almonds, I grind them more finely.
You don't want the cookies to have any noisy crunch, which would all but ruin the overall silky smooth texture. So it's really best to use nuts that are tender, even when raw.
Ingredient substitutions
As always, unless I specifically state otherwise, I haven’t tested these cookies with any substitutions. These are just my best-educated guesses:
Dairy free
I haven’t tried it, but I bet these cookies would work just fine with butter-flavored Spectrum non-hydrogenated vegetable shortening in place of the butter.
Corn free
I recommend trying potato starch as a substitute for cornstarch in the recipe. Since most confectioners’ sugar is made using cornstarch, you’ll also have to source a corn-free version of that ingredient.
A fellow reader has mentioned in the past that Trader Joe's has a corn-free confectioners' sugar, but I haven't investigated that personally. It's worth a look, though!
If you use a gluten free flour blend that is already high in starch, like Cup4Cup, replace the cornstarch gram for gram with more Cup4Cup.
Nut-free
If you can't have/won't have/don't want to have nuts, instead of these snowball cookies, I recommend my meltaway cookies.
They're both very similar in taste and texture, but naturally nut-free! The nuts provide a depth of flavor to these cookies, but the other cookies of course have their own merits. You really can't lose.
Gluten Free Mexican Wedding Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (210 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend, (See Recipe Notes)
- ¾ teaspoon xanthan gum, omit if your flour blend already contains it
- ⅝ cup (90 g) cornstarch
- 1 cup (115 g) confectioners’ sugar
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 13 tablespoons (90 g) finely chopped raw pecans, or almonds or blanched hazelnuts
- 16 tablespoons (224 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- Lukewarm water, by the teaspoonful as necessary
- ⅓ cup (67 g) granulated sugar, for rolling
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper and set it aside.
- In a large bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, cornstarch, 2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar (77 g) and salt, and whisk to combine well. Add the finely chopped nuts and whisk again to combine.
- Add the butter and vanilla, and mix until well-combined. I find that pressing down on the butter with the back of a spoon helps to distribute it throughout the dough.
- The cookie dough will look somewhat sandy, and will clump in places. Add water by the scant teaspoonful, mixing after each addition, until the dough holds together when scoop or squeezed.
- Scoop the dough by the heaping tablespoon (an overfull #70 ice cream scoop is ideal here, but two spoons work well, too). Roll each piece of dough into a round gently between the palms of your hands. Don’t pack the dough; just shape it.
- Place granulated sugar in a small mixing bowl. Place each ball of cookie dough in the bowl, and shake it back and forth to coat the dough in sugar. Allow the cookie dough to sit on a flat surface (other than the baking sheet) for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the sugar is less visible, meaning that the dough has begun to absorb it.
- Place the balls of dough in the freezer to chill until firm, about 5 to 10 minutes.
- Place the remaining 1/3 cup (38 g) confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl. Remove the chilled balls of dough from the freezer, and toss in the sugar a few at a time to coat completely.
- Place each of the pieces of dough as it’s coated in confectioners’ sugar onto the prepared baking sheet, leaving about 1 1/2-inches between pieces.
- Bake in the center of the oven until the cookies are set in the center and firm to the touch (about 12 minutes). They’ll will be fragile, but shouldn’t be wet.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven and allow to cool completely beforeserving.
- These cookies can be stored for at least 3 days in a sealed glass container at room temperature. For longer storage, seal tightly in a freezer-safe container and place in the freezer.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi Nicole.. Do you know if they still carry the organic spectrum Butter flavored shortening you mention in the dairy substitutes as i’m unable to find it? If not , would the regular spectrum shortening work or even coconut oil rather than butter or vegan butter?
Thank you❣️🤗🍪😋
Hi, Dayna, yes, I can find butter flavored Spectrum shortening, but the regular Spectrum shortening just doesn’t have the flavor but it performs the same. To be honest, when I made that suggestion there weren’t as many good block-style vegan butters, so I couldn’t recommend them as readily. I always prefer block style vegan butter like Melt or Miyoko’s now since they have a moisture content more similar to actual butter (shortening contains little to no moisture), but Spectrum should still work (but make cookies that spread less and taste a bit more dry). I hope that’s helpful!
These cookies just made the holidays for my gluten free daughter who was feeling sad about not having her favorite cookie. It appears that if you use a #70 scoop which is approximately 1 T, you get 48 cookies instead of the listed 24… an added surprise. Will have to make more. I barely got one to try!
Aw, Barb, that’s so sweet. Happy holidays from my gluten free family to yours. :)
Nicole,
I need your advice please on a totally different topic ie bread making but don’t know to get in touch with you hence this message on this thread.
Is there another address I can contact you on.
Many thanks
Brian
Hi, Brian,
You can use the “questions” form to contact me, but I’m afraid I don’t check those emails very frequently and have an assistant who responds to most emails. I’m afraid I’m not available for individual consultations, but if you’re on Facebook you should try joining my Facebook group as there are tons of helpful fellows readers who can likely help as well. Here’s a link to the group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythinggfoas/
Thanks for the recipe as Russian Tea Cakes was one of the 1st cookies I learned to bake as a child. Since going GF I had to abstain from it. I am also going sugar free. Will Stevia work with this recipe and in what proportion? Thanks again!
Hi, Reggie,
I’m afraid that Stevia won’t work, no. I would recommend Swerve alternative sweetener since they even have a confectioners’ sugar variety. I bet it would work great.
Made double recipe of your one bowl choc. cake last week for a birthday cake. Help! It didn’t turn out. Rose really high in oven , then slowly sank. I weigh my ingred.
Thanks for any help.
Lois, when a cake rises rapidly and then falls, it usually due to a too-hot oven. Most ovens run hot, which is why I always recommend using an oven thermometer. That, and if you didn’t use one of my recommended flour blends or made any other substitutions, you’re essentially creating a new recipe that wasn’t properly balanced. Good luck!
What a delightful recipe, tho i will have to tweak it a bit…can’t have the sugar. But, your daughter is absolutely beautiful! She looks just like her mom…. Thank her for being the taste-tester…..she was obviously pleased!
Thank you, Barbara! If you can’t have sugar, I would recommend Swerve alternative sweetener since they even have a confectioners’ sugar variety. I bet it would work great. And thank you so much for the kind words about my daughter. I will be sure to thank her. My children are all 3 my guinea pigs!
These look good, every year I make Kourabiedes — greek celebration cookies, with either finely minced walnuts or almonds… if i get a chance I may try these this year. Though I still sometimes can’t resist some food with gluten in it (my husband doesn’t follow being GF), I realize more and more that I PAY FOR IT. So I’m anxious to try these, I made a GF apple coffee cake that is really great, dear husband doesn’t even know it’s GF. Thanks for your recipes!
Don’t cheat, Ruthie! Just make things that are GF like this that are good enough for everyone. Take care of yourself!
I just made these and instead of using vanilla extract, I had almond extract and the cookies came out great. I did forget to put them in the freezer before baking. Can’t wait to make them again for Christmas for my family. Thank you Nichol for sharing.
I love love almond extract, Melissa. I’m always looking for ways to use it. Great idea!
Why not toast and cool the nuts before baking?? I would think it kuldip enhance the flavor.
Feel free to do that, Dena! They’re chopped very fine so I didn’t consider it necessary, but there’s no harm in doing that if you’d like.
I operate a restaurant so I don’t always read every word, but as I’ve said before your recipes are ALWAYS absolutely great. For some reason this morning I read the whole thing. Some things did NOT occur to me before but it has never bothered me and of course it makes perfect sense!
We make these every day here and I’m super excited to use this recipe for my DH and my GF customers. Thanks!!
Thanks, Teril! I’m glad you have so much success with my recipes. :)