For St. Patrick’s Day this year I’m celebrating with some tie-dyed shamrock looking Polvorones, the ultimate Mexican sugar cookie. These cookies will make you feel so LUCKY like you just fell into a pot of gold. Okay, maybe not a pot of gold but you’ll feel GOLDEN for sure. They will have you doing a little Irish jig and furthering the similarities between Mexicans and The Irish…. What a beautiful union of people and cookie dough.
Ingredients for Polvorones:
- 4 cups flour (packed)
- 1 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups vegetable shortening (room temp)
- 1/2 cup butter (room temp)
- 1 1/2 cup bakers sugar (plus 1/4 cup for dusting)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- gel food coloring ( I used both Kelly green, and leaf green)
Directions:
- Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl with a whisk. Set to the side.
- In a stand-up mixer with a paddle attachment on medium high speed cream vegetable shortening, butter, and sugar together for about 3 minutes.
- Add in vanilla and eggs and mix until fully combined.
- Next pour in the flour mixture, reduce the speed down to medium, and mix to incorporate.
- Divide the dough evenly into 3 portions. I dyed 2 portions a different shade of green each and left one portion it’s natural color. Dye (any color you want) the dough by adding a few drops of food gel to the dough and mixing thoroughly until the color desired is reached. If you are interested in the tie-dyed Polvorones look… take three colors of dough and roll each of them into long snake like shapes. Then stack the three snakes on top of one another, and twist the dough several times so it looks like a 3 color rope swirl. Then fold the dough in half and roll into a ball.
- Tightly wrap each ball of dough in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for several hours or overnight.
Let’s Bake!
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Line cookie sheets with non-stick baking mats.
- Take 4 tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball. Dip the ball completely into the bakers sugar to coat it. Then place the ball of dough onto the cookie sheet and with the back of a 1/4 measuring cup slightly press down on the ball of dough to flatten it. It will break around the edges a little bit and that is exactly what you want. I was able to fit 6 balls of dough per cookie sheet.
- Bake for 13 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool on cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. Repeat the process until all cookies are baked. Lucky for you, they taste even better the next day.
- Makes 2 dozen cookies.
- Enjoy!
If you want more St. Patrick inspiration for a fun party…. go with a Martian theme like I did…check it out here.
