Melting Little Snowballs Cookies

From the Bangor Daily News.  Click here to read more.

The species of holiday cookie known as snowballs really do melt–in your mouth. At a holiday party this weekend I attended, I saw that the hostess had manufactured a gorgeous pile of them, and when I tried one, I thought—umm, pecans. Butter. Sugar. Oddly, though, I have never made this kind of cookie in all my years of Christmas baking. Surely somewhere in piles of recipes I have is a one for snowballs from my Great-aunt Lee, a wonderful baker whose snowballs I recall from my childhood.

Alas, it would take me until Easter to find Lee’s recipe so I went to the great library in the cloud, where I did a little snowball research and discovered something about them that you probably already knew, but that I didn’t: the sugar used is all confectioner’s sugar. No wonder they are so tender.

I threw together a batch, and I chose my mixer to help. I have to say that I was a little dubious about the outcome, especially as I began to add flour to the creamed butter and sugar because the mixture in the bowl looked so dry. Then when I added the nuts, it all came together. The oil in the pecans (or walnuts if you chose to use those instead) was enough to do the job! What a revelation.

The pecans had spent a few moments in the food processor being turned into a coarse meal. Otherwise, chopping on a board until they were quite finely chopped would be quite the chore, but is worth the effort if you don’t use a processor.

It certainly looks like these are the only snowballs we are going to have around here this Christmas. It sounds like it is going to be warm enough on Friday to go on a picnic. If you take these cookies for dessert, though, you won’t have to worry about them melting in the sun, only in your mouth.

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Snowball Cookies

Serves: MAkes 3 dozen

 

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• ¾ cup of confectioner’s sugar
• 2 ½ cups flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup pecans or walnuts, very finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
2. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or grease it.
3. Additional confectioner’s sugar for rolling
4. Cream together the butter and sugar.
5. Add the flour, salt, nuts, and vanilla and mix until a firm mass of dough forms.
6. Roll inch sized balls of dough and place on the cookie sheet.
7. Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes. They will be barely browned.
8. When they are cool enough to handle, roll them in a bowl of confectioner’s sugar until they are generously coated.
9. Allow to cool further and store in a tin.