Snowball Cookies
Published December 30, 2018
Also known as Mexican wedding cookies or Russian tea cakes, these delicious cookies are a-l-l butter.
I had these for the first time a few years ago, when my dad’s friend from Boston stopped by New Jersey on her way to Florida. As a holiday gift, she gave us a small tin of homemade snowball cookies.
I was impressed with their airy texture and butter-based richness. I look for them around this time of year, but have yet to see them in supermarkets. So this Christmas, I decided to make them myself.
Snowball Cookie Ingredients
The only ingredient on this list I had to purchase was the walnuts. One recipe I researched called for pecans, while another used walnuts. You can also make snowball cookies without nuts.
Since this was my first time baking these, I decided I should keep the nuts in the recipe.
An Easy Christmas Cookie
As you might’ve noticed, I cook and bake using a knife and spoon. This recipe will be faster if you use a Kitchen-Aid mixer and food processor. Cooking and baking is relaxing for me, so I don’t mind spending extra time in the kitchen manually chopping or mixing. You can do what’s best for you.
In all, this recipe required only a bowl and cookie sheet. Most of my time was spent forming the dough or chopping the nuts into a powdery-fine consistency.
I found the most time-consuming part of this recipe is coating the cookies in the powdered sugar. The top of my cookies had fine little cracks, and since they were still warm from the oven, I was worried about breaking them as I rolled them in sugar.
To solve this, I used spoons to flip them around the sugar and place them on a dish. It worked out well, as I did not break any of them.
The Final Product
The Taste
My final snowball cookies taste just like the ones I first tried. The amount of butter in these cookies makes them dissolve, they are so soft. They remind me of shortbread cookies.
My chopped walnuts provided an occasional texture. I feel they were mostly for additional flavor. Using a food processor would give you a finer powder — but I didn’t mind the occasional crunch.
The Cookie Size
I formed half-dollar sized cookies for my recipe. These were probably too large, and difficult to eat due to their crumbly texture and powdered sugar.
Next time, I will make mini nickel-sized or quarter-sized cookies. They’d be easier to eat and I think their texture (if eaten in one bite) would be better.
In total, my recipe made about 25 medium-large cookies. I was happy that they baked successfully and my family said they were true to the classic snowball cookies!
K. Martinelli Makes Snowball Cookies
Thanks for Watching!
Do you have a favorite cookie recipe? Have you made snowball cookies before? Leave a comment below with your favorites — I’d love to hear them!
