I've been making these for about 30 years, but I believe on the recipe from a very old Woman's Day magazine, they're called pecan butter balls. They certainly are delicious and sort of are a rich version of a Mexican wedding cookie

I would add a little more flour to the dough

I recall my grandmother making these, and she died in 1966. So likely the recipe had been passed around for years before that.

I was thinking about reducing the pecans vs. just adding more flour. So the flour / butter ratio is not changed. But I know nothing about what compensations would need to be made when changing proportions.

I have a recipe for Mexican Wedding Cakes that is very similar. It came from someone named Wendy, possibly from Gardenweb or maybe BHG's or HGTV's forums. It is a small recipe - only makes 24 balls - so doubling it to compare to your recipe, it would look like this:

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)

4 Tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups sifted flour

2 cups chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 300.

Cream the butter.

Add sugar and vanilla.

Mix in flour

Stir in the nuts by hand.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 20 min. Form the dough into 50-cent sized balls - 0.5 oz.

Bake on an ungreased, flat cookie sheet for 45 min (yes, 45). Remove from oven and immediately roll in powdered sugar. Remove to a rack and allow to cool.

When cool, roll the cookies again in the powdered sugar.

I have made these successfully many times. Maybe try leaving out the water in your recipe? Are you allowing a wait time after mixing the ingredients?

I am doing tests with variations right now. First one was half the amount of pecans and no water. Did not work: just as fragile. Plus rather tasteless with fewer pecans.

My cousins (from the other side of the family) have a variation that calls for 1/2 the pecans as my old recipe above, plus 1 egg yolk. Chill for 1/2 an hour, then roll the balls. Those are cooling a bit right now: too hot to roll.

I can't believe that I made these for years, and now they don't work! Arrrrgh!

Graywings, is your sugar in the dough granulated sugar? Versus powdered sugar in my dough?

What does the waiting time do? Though I did refrigerate the dough between tests. I thought that refrigerating the dough was just to make the balls easier to roll.

The ones like my cousins make with half the pecans and the egg yolk did not work either. They still fall apart the second you touch them, much less try to roll them in sugar.

I just added an egg white, increased the amount of pecans closer to my original, and increased the powdered sugar. That variation is chilling now. After this I give up : for tonight, at least.

Graywings: your variation WORKED ! I had never thought of baking them longer, at a lower temperature. I also made sure the dough chilled for at least 20 minutes before rolling.

Thank you so much! I now have a batch of cookies that are firm enough not to shatter, yet still tender. Thank you, thank you, my adult kids should thank you!

While I still had kids at home or coming home on college holidays, I usually made the dough while they were not around, covered the bowl in the fridge, then relied on them once they were home to roll the balls, then roll the hot baked cookies in the powdered sugar . Meanwhile I would be mixing the dough for a different cookie, or pressing out spritz.

I wonder if the dough staying in the fridge for a longer time - sometimes a few days - made a difference too. The flour hydrates?

So glad you got it worked out. Yes, the Wendy version uses granulated sugar.

Apparently, chilling cookie dough is often recommended. I now do it with my standard Toll House recipe. I think it allows the flavors to develop, but there may also be a textural reason. I don't know.

Edited to add: I find this version much richer in taste than store-bought, probably because there are more pecans in the dough.

From Joy of Cooking...well used recipe