Mexican Wedding Cookies

Today I adapted a recipe for “Mexican Wedding Cookies” (apparently known in some parts as “Russian Tea Cakes” and elsewhere as “Snowman Testicles”) to be gluten-free and vegan. This recipe is simple as there are just a few necessary ingredients. The texture of the cookies shouldn’t be chewy or doughy; it should be something more like shortbread which is a bit tricky to accomplish without butter and without ordinary wheat flour... but, it can be done!

Here’s what you’ll need:
½ c vegan margarine (Earth Balance Original Whipped is my favorite)
2/3 c white sugar
2 tbsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
2 c salted walnuts or pecans finely chopped (almonds or hazelnuts would probably be good, too)
1 c white rice flour
1 c sorghum flour
1 ½ tsp xantham gum
*Optional 2 tbsp flax seed meal in ¼ c warm soymilk (please read below)
2 c powdered sugar

· Preheat oven to 325°F.
· Chop nuts in food processor on pulse if using whole nuts.
· Cream margarine, sugar and vanilla with a mixer or by hand until light and fluffy.
· Combine rice and sorghum flours with salt and xantham gum in a separate bowl.
· Slowly add dry ingredients in wet, blending on low speed.
· Mix in chopped nuts.
· Use a teaspoon to form the dough into balls and place on a cookie sheet.
· Bake at 325°F for about 10 minutes, then remove and turn over the cookies.
· Bake for another 10 minutes.
· Remove from oven. Let cool for 15 minutes or so.
· Drop into powdered sugar while still warm.

*I noticed at this point that my dough felt a little crumbly. I formed a few balls this way and baked them, but added the flax-meal/soy milk mixture to the rest of the dough. The cookies with the flax-meal mixture were cakier, and therefore less like the originals, but they also seemed to hold together better.