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Snowball Cookies

A plate piled with snowball cookies coated in powdered sugar
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Buttery pecan snowball cookies rolled in powdered sugar twice, once warm and once cold, for a thick snowy coat. Also known as Russian tea cakes and Mexican wedding cookies.

Ingredients

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Cookies

  • 120 g (1 cup) pecan halves
  • 225 g (1 cup, 2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 65 g (1/2 cup) powdered sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 280 g (2 1/4 cups) all purpose flour

Coating

  • 150 g (1 1/4 cups) powdered sugar

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F). Spread the pecans on a tray and toast for 7 to 8 minutes, until fragrant. Cool completely, then chop very finely by hand or pulse in a food processor until they look like coarse sand with a few small pieces. Do not grind to a paste.
  2. Line two baking trays with baking paper.
  3. Beat the butter and 65 g powdered sugar in a large bowl with a hand mixer on medium for about 2 minutes, until pale and creamy. Beat in the vanilla and salt.
  4. Add the flour and mix on low until the dough just comes together. It will look dry and crumbly at first, then clump. Add the pecans and mix until evenly distributed.
  5. Scoop level tablespoons of dough (about 18 g each) and roll into smooth balls between your palms. Place 3 cm apart on the trays. Chill the trays for 30 minutes.
  6. Bake one tray at a time for 12 to 14 minutes, until the bottoms are lightly golden and the tops are still pale and set. They do not spread much, so judge by the base, not the top.
  7. Cool on the tray for 5 minutes, only until you can handle them. Put the coating sugar in a wide bowl and roll each warm cookie in it until coated. Set on a wire rack.
  8. Once completely cold, roll every cookie in the sugar a second time for a thick, snowy coat.

Notes

  • The names: snowball cookies, Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding cookies and butterballs are all the same cookie, a buttery nut shortbread rolled in powdered sugar. The nut changes by region and the shape is always a ball.
  • Nut swaps: walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts work weight for weight. Toast whichever you use, raw nuts taste flat here.
  • Two coats, two temperatures. The first roll while warm makes the sugar melt into a thin glaze that the second coat sticks to. Roll too hot and the sugar vanishes into the cookie, roll stone cold with no first coat and it falls straight off.
  • Do not brown the tops. A golden top means a dry cookie. The base should be golden and the top matte and pale.
  • Make ahead and storage: the rolled dough balls freeze for 3 months on a tray, then in a bag, and bake from frozen with 2 extra minutes. Baked cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 1 week, with a sheet of baking paper between layers. Give them a fresh dusting of sugar before serving if they have been stored.
  • Troubleshooting: cookies flattened, the butter was too soft or the trays went in without chilling. Cookies crumbly and falling apart, the nuts were chopped too coarsely or the dough was under mixed, it should hold firmly when squeezed. Sugar coat patchy, the first coat went on too hot, so let them sit another minute next time.

Nutrition

Find it online: https://zhangcatherine.com/snowball-cookies-recipe/