Cocoons

Call them cocoons, call them snowballs, call them Mexican wedding cookies with an identity crisis. Whatever the name, they disappear from the plate in record time.

Flour, powdered sugar, chopped pecans, and melted margarine get mixed together by hand into a simple dough. No eggs. No vanilla. No leavening. Just four ingredients that come together into something surprisingly rich and crumbly.

Shaped into small ovals and baked until the bottoms are barely golden, they cool down and get tossed in a bag of powdered sugar until they’re coated in a soft white cloud. The first bite crumbles into buttery, nutty dust on your tongue.

Pro Tips

• Don’t overbake. Pull them when the bottoms are light brown and the tops still look pale. They firm up as they cool and overbaking makes them dry.
• Cool completely before the sugar coating. Warm cookies melt the powdered sugar into a sticky paste instead of a clean, fluffy coating.
• The plastic bag method is genius. Five or six cookies at a time, shake gently, and they come out evenly coated with no mess.
• Store in a single layer or with parchment between layers. Stacking them bare knocks off the sugar coating.