Mother's Day Recipe: Snowball Cookies

If you tend to procrastinate on getting gifts for your well-deserving mother on Mother's day like I do, then here is my gift to you - one of the easiest cookie recipes EVER....the Snowball Cookie. 

Yeah, this cookie is more of a winter-time cookie, but it just so happens to be one of my mom's favorites, so I thought that I'd share it. This is for those of you who aren't in the kitchen too often and for those moms with a sweet tooth. 

If you're still awake at 1am scrambling to figure out what to do for Mother's Day, well here you go! What mom doesn't like homemade goods?! 

Snowball Cookies

Makes about 40

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 cups nuts*
• 4-6 tbsp granulated sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 sticks butter (room temp.)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Powdered sugar, to dust (about 1 cup)

*most nuts such as almonds, walnuts, pecans, etc. will work

Prepare your baking sheets, you will need two. I lined mine with silicone mats, but parchment paper, nonstick spray, or simple butter and flour will work just fine.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

This recipe, for the most part, is a dump-and-mix kind of recipe, so in other words: super easy mode. In a large bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients (flour, nuts, granulated sugar, and salt). Add in the vanilla, followed by the butter in chunks. 

I like to cut the butter in cubes when still cold. This allows the butter to reach room temperature quicker, and makes it easier to combine into your dry mixture.

With your CLEAN hands, knead the butter into your dry ingredients. 

Make sure all the chunks of butter are thoroughly combined and you should get a course looking mixture. When you clump it in your hands it should be able to hold its shape. 

Using a tablespoon, scoop out heaping spoon-fulls of dough and roll them into balls. (Now here comes the dramatic change of lighting..)

Place them in the oven to bake for 35 minutes.

When finished, allow them to cool on the pan for about 5-10 minutes, until they are still warm, but cool enough to touch. This is when you want to coat them with their first layer of powdered sugar.

These cookies tend to be a little delicate when being coated with the sugar, so I pulled out this wired basket (that we usually use for hot pot..) and dipped all sides into the sugar, but use whatever is easiest for you.

Because the cookies are still warm and moist from the butter, the sugar starts dissolving onto the cookie. Allow them to completely cool.

And now that our cookies are cool, it's time for the second coat! Here we're only coating the tops so take a sifter, or a wire strainer and dust your cookies with the top layer of powered sugar. We're making it snow! Now you can see why they're called snowball cookies keke.

Snow ball cookies are crunchy, moist, and so melt-in-your-mouth good. But I've got to warn you, these are very rich (it's the butter), and quite messy, but they definitely get the Mommy Stamp of Approval.

Happy Mothers Day