The Border Table · Source Edition
Pan de Polvo
Small pecan shortbread cookies rolled in cinnamon sugar after baking.
A generous 2021 dough made with flour, shortening, sugar, eggs and chopped pecans.
Cook it
A generous 2021 dough made with flour, shortening, sugar, eggs and chopped pecans.
- Mix the dough. Heat the oven to 350°F. Combine the flour and cup of sugar, then cut in the shortening with a pastry blender. Stir in the finely chopped pecans. Beat the eggs and add them to the flour mixture.
- Roll and cut. Knead the dough together in the bowl and divide into six balls. Work one ball at a time, rolling to ¼-inch thickness. Cut with small cookie cutters.
- Bake. Set the cut cookies on baking sheets and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until set and lightly colored. Keep an eye on the small pieces because their edges can color quickly.
- Coat. While the cookies are still warm enough to catch it, gently roll them in a cinnamon-sugar mixture. Let cool completely before stacking.
Serve it
Serve the cooled cookies with coffee or after a meal. They are fragile while hot, so handle the cinnamon-sugar coating gently.
Understand it
What makes this version work
The pecans are chopped finely so they fit in small cookies without tearing the cut shapes. Shortening makes this a short, crumbly dough rather than an elastic bread dough. Roll one of the six portions at a time and keep the rest together. The old card provides the coating step but no amount or cinnamon-to-sugar ratio; mix enough to coat the finished batch to your own taste instead of treating a guessed quantity as original.
Know it
The recorded recipe and its place at the table
Pan de polvo is a name used for tender, powdery cookies in Mexican and Mexican American kitchens. This page documents the owner’s 2021 pecan-bearing version, not a claim that all pan de polvo contains pecans or follows these exact proportions. The archive gives the method but no named family baker, region or original date. The broader Mexican American food story is one of family and regional variation; the specific cookie formula belongs to the recorded card.
Sources and method
About this version
The ingredient proportions and core method come from the owner’s 2021 Authentic Tex-Mex Recipes card. The Border Table has clarified the instructions for readers without claiming an undocumented inventor or origin for the exact formula. The external source gives broader culinary context; it does not authenticate the owner’s private recipe.
- Smithsonian National Museum of American History, The Tex-Mex Invasion.
- FoodSafety.gov, Four Steps to Food Safety — refrigeration and safe handling guidance where relevant.
See our corrections policy to suggest an update.
