About this Recipe

A traditional way you may know this yummy dessert is prepared with fine ground black walnuts, and called Russian teacakes. In fact, most of these Snowball Pecan Cookie recipes do not call for chocolate chips, but we just love chocolate so decided to add them to our version of this cookie. The chocolate chips are optional but for those of us that are crazy about chocolate, these chocolate chip snowball cookies are pretty fantastic. And, no wonder this is such a popular recipe. Just take a bite into these blissful homemade cookies and they literally melt in your mouth.

Grandmother's Kitchen Tips for Snowball Pecan Cookies

1. We suggest buying a cookie scoop if you don't have one already. They are not expensive and you get very close to the exact amount for each cookie you form. This means even baking times and better success overall. One tablespoon is a good size.

2. These light as a feather cookies are a little delicate while still warm so handle carefully when you are putting on the icing sugar.

3. Condensation and moisture will destroy the texture of these cookies, so if you plan to freeze them, do layers with parchment paper in between the layers and freeze in a container with a lid. When you thaw them, take them directly out of the container onto your serving dish, and leave the cookies uncovered. Moisture and condensation will ruin these light fluffy cookies.

4. These chocolate chip snowball cookies freeze very well, just be sure to line the layers with parchment paper so they do not stick together.

5. Dark chocolate (as compared to milk or white chocolate) has some recent research evidence suggesting that in post-menopausal women to lower appetite.(1)

References:

(1) Marsh CE1, Green DJ2, Naylor LH3, Guelfi KJ3 (2017) Consumption of dark chocolate attenuates subsequent food intake compared with milk and white chocolate in postmenopausal women. Appetite. 2017 Sep 1;116:544-551. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2017.05.050. Epub 2017 May 29.

Since you’re using nuts in this dessert recipe, it’s a good idea to prepare them, so they don’t grow mold. Nuts are very susceptible to mold growth, so it’s important to learn what kills mold in order to protect your food. Vinegar is really great at killing and preventing mold from growing. It’s also a powerful natural antibacterial agent that kills germs. So to prepare your pecans for this recipe you can soak them in a large bowl of water for 24 hours. Make sure you dump the water out and rinse them every several hours or so. Then, for the last 20 minutes, put a bit of white vinegar in the water and soak the pecans in it. The vinegar will kill any germs and will protect the nuts from mold.

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Ingredients

(Print)

Makes: 38 cookies

1 cup butter, salted or unsalted, room temperature

1 cup confectioners' sugar plus extra for dipping and sprinkling once baked (about 1/2 cup more or less)

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/4 cups finely chopped pecans

1/4 cup chocolate chips - Optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. To avoid cookies from flattening - be sure the oven is at 350 degrees F before you put the cookies in to bake.

2. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

3. Chop the pecans into fine pieces. Don't use a grinder as the texture gets too mushy.

4. In a large mixing bowl of a stand mixer cream the butter and confectioners' sugar.

5. Add the vanilla and salt and continue mixing.

6. Slowly add the flour and keep mixing in using low speed to start until you have all the flour in then turning to medium high speed.

7. The dough will be very thick.

8. Add the chopped pecans and mix in.

9. Add the chocolate chips and mix in.

10. We used a cookie scoop to make the balls. There is a good heaping tablespoon in each cookie. Keep the sizes consistent so they bake at the same time.

11. Scoop the cookies onto the baking sheet.

12. Once you have scooped the cookies, roll them with your hands into balls and place leaving an inch between.

13. Place into preheated oven on the middle rack to bake.

14. Baking times are suggested from 15-18 minutes. Different ovens bake at different speeds.

15. We baked our 18 minutes and they were perfect. You don't want to over bake, but you do want the cookies to be a very light brown.

16. Baking time is also going to depend on how big your cookie balls are and if they are smaller than we made, they will bake quicker so pay attention and check them at 15 minutes.

17. Remove the baked cookies from the oven and leave the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes.

18. Have ready a bowl with confectioners' sugar.

19. Dip each cookie and roll it over so you have sugar on all sides. Use your tongs or your fingertips to accomplish this.

20. The cookies are a bit delicate while they are still warm and need to be handled gently.

21. The cookie is quite sweet already and many recipes suggest once the cookies have cooled completely you can dip them in confectioners' sugar again.

22. We used a sifter and just did a light dusting on top for the second coat.

23. These cookies melt in your mouth when you bite them.

24. Cookies will store at room temperature up to 7 days.

ENJOY!

Return to this Snowball Pecan Cookies recipe or check out more recipes at Grandmother's Kitchen

Using the right dishwasher could solve a lot of your kitchen cleaning woes as well. The best cleaning dishwasher is going to help you stay on top of your dishes so things don’t get out of control and so you can always go into your kitchen ready to make some delicious food. A good idea is to watch some YouTube videos on the best cleaning dishwasher and see other people’s reviews on them and what they recommend.

It’s also important to clean your dishwasher regularly, so it doesn’t get clogged up and fail to work. You can simply run your dishwasher through on a regular cycle but with no dishes in it this time. Add some all natural dishwasher soap or whichever dishwasher soap you use and also add some vinegar to disinfect the machine. It will be clean in the same time it takes to run through a load of dishes.

Snowball pecan cookies are also known as Mexican wedding cookies and Russian butterball cookies. Homemade cookies are one of the favorite dessert recipes that Grandmother's kitchen loves to prepare. We have a lot of cookie-monster loving friends and family that are the happy recipients of any extras that come out of our kitchen. This snowball recipe has such an appeal and the snowball pecan cookie recipe is one that is generally trending on the internet.

For those that say dark chocolate tastes terrible, we say, just take the time to get use to it. Once you convert from milk chocolate and chocolate with low cacao contents, you will likely never go back. If you are a choc-o-holic, eating chocolate filled with good benefits for your body is a good thing to think about.