Taste the sweetest Pecan Snowball Cookies

The simplest Christmas cookies to prepare are pecan snowball cookies, which only require 5 ingredients and 1 mixing bowl. These snowballs are a traditional addition to the cookie platter at Christmas, and optional toasted nuts give them the most delicious flavor and texture! You can be sure that this simple snowball cookie recipe will turn out perfectly because it lacks any difficult processes or components.

Pecan Snowball Cookies

This type of crumbly, sugar-dusted shortbread biscuit has been around for a very long time, and there is simply something so alluring about it. It’s difficult to limit yourself to just one since they are so distinctively buttery, thick, and melt-in-your-mouth!

Confectioners’ sugar, butter, and flour are all ingredients in Pecan Snowball Cookies. You may try them with roasted pecans! Sometimes they also include chopped nuts. In addition to being included in the cookie dough, confectioners’ sugar also gives cookies their recognizable snow-dusted surface. The original recipes for snowball cookies don’t call for eggs or leavening agents.

How would you describe these cookies? They go by a variety of names and are frequently prepared using nuts or nut flour as an ingredient. Names include butterballs, snowdrops, Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding biscuits, and more. They can be referred to as Greek kourabiedes or Viennese crescents if they are shaped like crescents.

Along with other favorites like gingerbread cookies, pinwheel cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and chocolate crinkle cookies, these simple cookies are a dependable mainstay on my cookie tray.

How Do Pecan Snowball Cookies Work?

Snowballs, a type of mouth-watering delicacy, are sometimes referred to as Mexican wedding biscuits or Russian tea cakes. They are produced using common components like butter, powdered sugar, vanilla essence, flour, finely chopped nuts, and salt. The snowball-like appearance of spherical biscuits comes from their coating in powdered sugar. The Christmas season is a popular time to offer the festive dessert.

The Way to Make Snowball Cookies

Snowballs are not only tasty but also quite simple to create. The complete, step-by-step recipe can be found below, but here is a quick rundown of what to anticipate when making these buttery Pecan Snowball Cookies:

Butter, vanilla, and powdered sugar should all be combined.
Combine the flour, salt, and pecans.
Roll into balls and bake for a set result.
Sift sugar over the heated biscuits.
After the cookies have cooled, coat them with sugar once again.
Add 14 cups of finely broken peppermint candy canes to the confectioners’ sugar used for the final dusting to give it a festive touch.

Can you freeze snowball cookies?

In advance, they can be cooked and frozen. The cookies should be placed in a durable Glad-ware freezer container after being wrapped in two Ziploc freezer bags. Take them out of the frozen containers and set them, uncovered, on serving trays or platters to thaw. They should never be allowed to thaw inside plastic or containers.

The Pecan Snowball Cookies will be ruined by the dampness that collects there. After the cookies have defrosted, keep them at room temperature for up to 5 days in sealed containers.

Additionally, the dough is quickly frozen by a process called flash freezing. The dough is simply rolled and placed on baking trays coated with paper.

To prevent the dough balls from freezing to one another, make sure they are not touching. Transfer the frozen balls to a freezer bag after putting the entire sheet in the freezer. That bag should be kept in a reliable freezer container.

When you’re ready to bake, just put the cookies on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and let them slightly defrost while the oven heats up. Cookies that have been frozen may need to bake for an extra one to two minutes.

Without nuts, snowball cookies

The beautiful thing about this straightforward recipe for snowball cookies is that, if desired or necessary, you can skip the nuts.

Simply ignore that section of the recipes, then follow the remainder of the instructions.

Changing the nuts you’re adding is just as straightforward as changing the nuts you’re taking away. Due to their flavor and texture, walnuts are another excellent option.

3 Tips for Success

Use butter that is at room temperature. If your butter is too soft when you start, just like when preparing Pecan Snowball Cookies or butter cookies, it won’t make a strong base for your cookie dough. The cookies will spread too much and taste thick and oily.

Make sure the cookie dough contains confectioners’ sugar, often known as powdered sugar or icing sugar. If you use granulated sugar, the cookies will spread too much and lose their “snowball” form.

Confectioners’ sugar should be applied twice to the cookies—once while they are still warm and again when they are cool—because the first coating melts like, well, a heated snowball.

My snowballs cracked in the oven; what was it?

Your snowball cookies may be baking for too long if you see that they are breaking apart or even shattering in the oven. To avoid making this error, make sure you are according to the recipe instructions that are mentioned above.

Don’t be worried if that happens; a few fractures will appear along the way. However, if they all begin to do so and lose their form, it is a strong indication that you are probably overcooking them in the oven.

How to Keep Snowball Cookies Fresh

These cookies tend to be a little drier than other cookies, which is one thing you’ll notice about them. This is a result of the additional ingredients and how they are prepared for baking.

They are not at all intended to be moist cookie recipes. It’s preferable if they crumble more. When you chew them, not when you bake them, is when you want them to crumble in your mouth.

And if you’re fortunate enough to have any leftover handmade pecan ball cookies, you can simply preserve them so you can eat them over the following several days.

Simple They should be placed in a cabinet high up and kept in an airtight container. Okay, so you don’t need to hide them, but doing so will help you avoid having them devoured by everyone.