Pistachio Italian Wedding Cookies: SO GOOD THEY SHOULD CALL THEM HONEYMOON COOKIES

I think the title for this post says it all.

It all started when I began researching some wedding necessities - venues, caterers, that sort of thing. I started to get just a little bit stressed out. I reminded myself that the goal in all things wedding is JOY. So to ease the stress, I did a search for the ultimate stress-reducer.

COOKIES.

I found a recipe for Italian Wedding Cookies. I modified it only slightly, and with the help of my sous chef, or in this case sous baker (AKA The Fiancé - who, incidentally, happens to be 25% Italian and thereby makes creating and devouring these cookies so much more legitimate and possibly a cultural celebration of our love, amiright?), whipped up a batch of cookies. Enough for us to enjoy, and enough to package up to give his parents, since my future in-laws were coming through town and we met them for lunch today.

Here are the cookies.

Cookies. Made with love. And a lot of butter.

Here's the recipe (modified from this recipe over at Mother Thyme):

Pistachio Italian Wedding Cookies
Yield: 2 Dozen

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1/2 cup heart healthy olive-oil rich butter substitute (or another stick of straight-up butter if you wanna go all Old School Paula Deen with it)
• 1 cup confectioners/powdered sugar (half will be for cookie-making, half reserved for cookie-coating!)
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 package (3.4 oz) of pistachio pudding mix

Directions

• Cream the butter and butter substitute in a mixing bowl; then add 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla
• Combine dry ingredients in a second mixing bowl
• Add dry ingredients gradually into the bowl with the sugar-vanilla-butter fluff; beat gently until well mixed and smooth
• Roll dough into a large ball; put in tupperware or wrap in saran and place in refrigerator for at least an hour
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit and line cookie/baking sheets with parchment paper
• Take chilled ball of dough; form small strawberry-sized balls of dough, and place on parchment paper-topped baking sheets. Press gently; space 1" apart
• Bake for 8-10 minutes, then remove from oven and let sit on hot baking sheets for another 5 minutes outside the oven
• After 5 minutes, while still warm, dust the cookies with remaining confectioners sugar - a light coating goes a long way

Eat them and think, yes - they really should call them honeymoon cookies instead of wedding cookies, because DAMN.