My mom started making these cookies when I was a little girl. If memory serves, it came from a Women's Club cookbook...you know the kind of thing that everyone contributes a few recipes to, and they bind it with a plastic spiral binding that always falls apart. Which makes it at least 60 years old, probably one of my oldest recipes. And I still make it basically the same way.
This cookie seems to show up in many different countries, in different variations, e.g. Mexican or Russian tea cakes. They're all butter cookies with nuts, rolled into a ball and baked in a slow oven until they're brown, then rolled in confectioner's sugar. I think this one is really one of the simplest cookies to make, because it has so few ingredients.
SNOWBALLS
8 oz. unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup chopped, toasted walnuts
2 1/2 cups AP flour, sifted
Confectioner's sugar
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Cream butter and sugar in mixing bowl, using the paddle attachment, or cream together by hand.
Add vanilla and sea salt and walnuts to blend. Gradually add flour, mixing at low speed. At the end you may have to mix it by hand because of the dryness of the mixture.
Pinch off small pieces of dough; roll in hands and pat slightly.
These cookies will not spread or rise much, so they can be placed fairly close together on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake about 30 minutes or until lightly browned.
While the cookies are baking, sift confectioner's sugar onto a piece of waxed paper, creating about a 1/4-inch layer. This is the part that has taken me a while to get the way I want it. You have to get the confectioner's sugar to stick to the cookies to form a sort of frosting layer, which means handling them right out of the oven when they're hot so the butter can mingle with the sugar.
So right when cookies come out of the oven, immediately transfer them to the sugar,
and sift more sugar over the tops,
and then roll them around a bit.
They should look like this:
When the cookies have cooled a bit, sift a little more powdered over the cookies to look like snow.
Makes 60 cookies. And by the way, if they aren't all eaten quickly, just pop them into the freezer in a freezer bag.
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