Snowball Cookies | Christmas Cookies Recipe

Anns Bakery in Kottayam will always remind me of their cashew snowball cookies which I used to eat by the packet when I was a kid. They were not cheap (nothing from Anns is cheap) but when we buy them at home, I would gobble them up. Snowball cookies form a delicious part of my childhood memories.

I knew I would bake them one day and I knew it would be when I was feeling particularly homesick, and that's exactly what happened. I was compiling this list of Christmas Recipes from Kerala and felt like I had to have some cookies - and they had to be snowball cookies!

I used pecans, one of my favourites, in the cookies. You can substitute with walnuts (I am not a fan of them) or cashew nuts. Anns uses cashew nuts so for more "authentic snowball cookies", try this recipe with cashew nuts, lightly roasted. And yes, these are eggless too, perfect for Christmas!

Eggless Snowball Cookies
Prep time: 10 mins
Baking time: 30 mins
Makes 24 cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour / maida
3/4 cup chopped pecans (or any nut of your choice)
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
3 tbsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup icing sugar, for coating and dusting (can substitute with powdered sugar too)

How I Made It:

0. Pre-heat oven to 300F or ~ 160C

1. Mix the flour, sugar, chopped nuts, and salt in a mixing bowl.

2. Add the softened butter and vanilla...

... and knead lightly with fingertips until the dough comes together and there are no signs of the flour showing.

3. Pinch off a little dough at a time and make into small lime-sized ball. I got 24 cookies from this amount of dough.

4. Place them 2" apart on a lined baking tray and bake until uniformly browned, about 25-30 mins. If you feel they are a bit uncooked, bake for 2-3 more mins but not more than 35 mins.

5. When still warm, roll in icing sugar until well coated, let them cool, and store in an air-tight container for up to a week.

These are very easy and eggless cookies you can bake for Christmas and give away to people. The pecans give it a lovely flavour although I'd love to try the cashew nut version of snowball cookies they have in Anns.


They are a bit chewy with some crunch from the nuts. It's a good idea to lightly toast them before use but I used these pecans right out of the bag. The cookies themselves are not too sweet so be generous when dusting with the powdered / icing sugar.


Note that I use unbleached flour for my baking so the cookies are a bit darker than they would be if you use regular plain flour.

So, what are you baking this Christmas? :)