Recipe: Snowball Cookies
Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash
With New Year’s Eve parties right around the corner, we’re all trying our best to figure out what holiday-appropriate dessert we can offer to our guests or hosts—the type of dessert that would do well in a party setting. Pie and cake are too difficult to serve, and cupcakes take quite a bit of prep work. So what’s the answer?
Snowball cookies—perfectly suited to the season, snowballs strike the perfect balance of sweet-but-not-too-sweet. And they’re not just your basic cookie, but instead, are stuffed with crushed pecans and rolled in powdered sugar, making for a dessert that everyone will want seconds of.
Here’s how you can make snowball cookies for your New Year’s gathering:
The ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsalted butter, room tempature
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 powdered sugar
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
How to make Snowball Cookies:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large bowl, using a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add in the vanilla extract and mix until combined, scraping off the sides of the bowl as needed.
Reduce the speed to low and add in the flour and salt slowly. Expect the dough to be crumbly rather than smooth. Once the dry ingredients are fully combined, beat in the pecans until just combined.
On a greased cookie sheet, create 1-inch cookie balls and place 1 inch apart. The cookies will not spread out while cooking, but will keep their rounded shape. Bake for around 14-16 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden.
Allow the cookies to cool for a few minutes. While they’re cooling, pour some powdered sugar into a bowl. Then, very gently roll each cookie in the powdered sugar until fully coated (you may need to roll them more than once, depending on how much powdered sugar you like). Store in an air-tight container if serving later. Enjoy!