My Annual Holiday Baking Extravaganza Part Three (a series...with recipes!)
In Which I Offer An Easy Family Favorite
Does the idea of making cutout cookies with the little ones make you twitch? It’s right up there with letting them decorate the tree, right? - and I am here for you. It’s possible we need a support group. But anyway. This recipe is from my mom, and we just called them snowballs. I have no idea if that is the real name or not, but when she gave me the recipe card, that is what she called them, so…
Original recipe from my mom - see below for some minor changes I made.
They are essentially a Russian tea cookie (so timely!) - butter, sugar, flour, egg. Add nuts and/or chocolate chips.
And then you simply roll them into balls and bake.
This is where that mild control-freak impulse is useful and important - you want the balls to be essentially the same size. And I find the easiest way to do that is to mush the dough into a tablespoon (the measuring one, not the soup one), and then roll it into a ball. None of this “shape into walnut-sized balls” business - who the hell knows what a whole walnut looks like these days? What if you’ve only ever seen super-sized mutant walnuts?
Do a bunch of these at a time, and hand the already-measured dough to the kids. They’ve all used Playdough, so they got this. Mostly. You can subtly fix lumps and funny shapes before baking, or you can roll with it (ha) and add mini-chocolate-chip eyes to the snakes and whatever other shapes they produce.
Snow snakes. That’s actually a pretty good idea.
I did make changes to the recipe. I do not bother to sift the flour, and I use the Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour as it helps the dough keep a more rounded shape (all-purpose flour will still result in a circular cookie, but a little flatter). My family prefers no nuts, so I increase the chips.
Snowballs (edited version)
3/4 cup butter, room temp
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
One egg
2 cups flour (I use Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour but all-purpose is fine)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips, or nuts, or a combination
Powdered sugar (for rolling finished cookie)
Oven to 350.
Blend butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in vanilla and egg. Add flour and salt. Dough will be a bit crumbly. Add the chips and/or nuts - you may need to mix with your hands.
Using a measuring tablespoon, press dough into spoon - do not overfill. Pry out and roll into balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet or use parchment. Bake 15-20 minutes* or until edges are just golden. Cool and roll in powdered sugar. Makes about 2 1/2 dozen.
You can freeze them before covering with the sugar, then thaw and roll in the powdered sugar when ready to serve (My experience has been that if you freeze them with the powdered sugar on them, the sugar on the bottom of the cookie can get soggy after thawing).
*bake time should be the same for your snow snakes, unless they are really flat - in that case, check them at 10 minutes