Chocolate Mexican Wedding Cookies

Tonight my Monday night group was getting together to have fajitas. Each person was asked to bring a food item to contribute. Knowing most were bringing tortillas, I figured I'd bring a dessert. Shocker, right?!? Wanting to bring a dessert that went along with the meal and not wanting to make flan, I googled 'mexican desserts' and came across a recipe for which I had all the ingredients. They actually turned out quite well though I altered the recipe slightly from the original.

Chocolate Mexican Wedding Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup margarine
  
• 1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup ground pecans
• 1/2 cup ground semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar (after the cookies are baked)

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and 1/3 cup confectioner's sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, ground pecans, 1/2 cup ground chocolate, cinnamon and salt; mix well.
3. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture.
4. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill 1 to 2 hours, or until firm. (I put mine in the freezer for an hour and a half.)
5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (180 degrees C).
6. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 15 to 18 minutes, or until the cookies are firm to the touch. Cool 1 minute on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack. (I baked it for 17-18 minutes. I had expected them to be like chocolate chip cookies and to spread out while baking but they did not do that. They pretty much stayed in the same form into which I had rolled them.)
7. For the coating, sift 1/2 cup of the confectioner's sugar into a shallow bowl. While cookies are still warm, roll them in the coating. (Not sure if the cookies were still too warm, but I coated the first batch and the confectioners' sugar started to melt. So in the second batch, I waited til the cookies were pretty much cooled off.)

The cookies were only slightly sweet but still very good. I had a request to make them with pumpkin next time. That would definitely bring a different element/texture to the cookie.