Christmas Snowball Cookies are known the world over by different names. You may know them as Mexican or Italian Wedding Cookies or even as Russian Tea Cakes. They’re even known as Meltaways, like the kind you find this time of year in the red tin. You know the ones. Call them whatever you like, but tuck this recipe in with your other cookies. Christmas Snowball Cookies are made with very few ingredients and come together with remarkable ease considering the duality of their crunchy and melt-in-your-mouth texture.
Notes on Ingredients
I’ve kept the recipe here traditional. But please note that fewer ingredients mean that there is room for improvisation and adaptation. My recipe uses vanilla, cinnamon, and pecans to give flavor to the sweet and buttery dough. But you could easily omit any of the three or substitute them with something else. It’s entirely up to you. The recipe will yield about four dozen cookies. You can easily make a sampler of different flavors by combining the butter, sugar, flour, and salt; diving the dough into equal portions, and then make a third of the batch with pecans, another third with pistachios (and cardamom), and the last third with almonds (and espresso).
Notes on Method
This cookie dough is dry. For this reason, your butter must be soft and at room temperature. Too cold, and it will be too difficult to bring the dough together; melt it, and the wet dough won’t yield desired results. You want the cookies to be golden on the bottom and just beginning to brown on the top. The idea is for the outside to be a bit hard once cooled. The crunch of the first bite is essential to Christmas Snowball Cookies. Without it, the texture is akin to a lump of mush.
You will note there is no amount specified for the powdered sugar needed to roll and coat the cookies. I like to avoid wasting ingredients. It’s better to start with a little and add more as you need.
Christmas Snowball Cookies
INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup butter - softened; room temperature
- ½ cup powdered sugar - plus more for coating cookies
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2¼ cups flour
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 1 cup pecans - crushed/finely chopped
METHOD
- Using an electric mixer or a spoon, cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla.
- Next, stir in the flour, salt, and cinnamon.
- Add in the pecans, cover, and chill for 30 minutes.
- Scoop 1 tbsp of dough to form 1 inch rounds. Space about 1 inch apart on baking sheet.
- Bake in a preheated 375°F oven until bottoms are golden and tops are just beginning to brown- about 16-18 minutes.
- Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes, then roll to coat in powdered sugar.
- Then allow cookies to cool completely. Some of the sugar may melt as the cookies cool. Toss and coat a second time.
