Snowball Cookies

Sunday was a magical day for me. It wasn't that my day wasn't full of our normal Sunday routine. It was that one of my students introduced me to the magical world of Snowball Cookies. These are the kind of snowballs that I can deal with all year round, and HAPPILY!

Don't they just look yummy? Plus the tin it's in doesn't look to shabby. I'm partial though. I'm a huge Coca Cola fan!

So, like any good person who has probably lost their mind once or twice over these delightful treats, I scoured the Internet looking for the recipe. Don't be silly... It wasn't so much scouring as much as typing into Google "Snowball Cookies" and clicking on the first button I saw. Or was it Pinterest? There may have been some slight scouring, but you get the point. I picked the first good looking picture I could find. It led me to this site and this recipe.

I didn't add any nuts to my cookies. They're nut-less. Or nut-free. Plainly said... No Nuts Here!

The fun thing about these cookies is that you can get a lot or a little depending on how big your balls turn out. I got 57 cookies out of the batch I made. They were varying sizes. You could tell. By the end of rolling these suckers, I was rolling the dough into bigger balls. Anyways, here's the recipe, so you don't have to hop on over to that site if you don't want to.


Snowball Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped pecans
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted - for rolling cookies

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the butter and 1/2 cup of the confectioners' sugar until smooth and creamy. Add in vanilla extract and mix until combined.

3. Mix in the flour, pecans and salt. Mixing until just combined.

4. Roll about 1 tablespoon of dough (mine are a bit larger, see notes below) into balls and place on prepared baking sheet. The cookies can be placed quite close together since they do not spread during the baking process.

5. Bake in preheated oven for about 15 minutes – taking care not to over bake. Allow cookies to cool on baking pan until you are able to comfortably hold them in your hands.

6. Sift 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar into a medium bowl. While cookies are still warm, roll them in confectioners' sugar. Place cookies on cooling rack, once they have cooled completely, roll them in confectioners' sugar again.