Buttery Pecan Snowball Cookies

5 from 2 votes

Buttery Pecan Snowball Cookies

This cookie recipe is made with pecans and exhibits an almost shortbread-like texture that we LOVE. With just 6 ingredients and 10 minutes of active work, you’ll love these melt-in-your-mouth cookies!

Course baking, Cookies, Dessert

Cuisine Italian, Mexican

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 25

Total Time 35

Servings

Calories 172kcal

Author Alexandria Drzazgowski

Equipment

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter softened
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
½ tsp salt
2 cups pecans minced
Powdered Sugar for topping

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Use an electric hand mixer to cream together 1 cup butter and ¼ cup sugar until fluffy. Add 2 tsp vanilla and mix again.
Sift together 2 cups flour and ½ tsp salt. Stir into the butter mixer.
Use a wooden spoon to mix in 2 cups pecans. The dough will be crumbly, like sand, but you should be able to form it into balls.
Form the cookies into balls about 1 inch across. They will not grow or spread in the oven, so whatever size you form them is the size they will stay. Put the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 25 minutes.
Once cooled, dust the cookies with powdered sugar and enjoy!

Notes

Recipe Copyright The Foreign Fork. For educational or personal use only.

Butter: This recipe is best with unsalted, softened butter. I always use unsalted butter for baking as it is much easier to control the salt concentration in the cookie that way. Make sure to leave your butter out on the counter for a few hours before baking so that it can soften to room temperature. The perfect internal temperature for softened butter is between 68-72 degrees Fahrenheit.
Pecans: I love the pecans that are featured in this recipe! The original recipe from my grandmother called for 4 cups of pecans instead of 2, so that the cookies could also be rolled in pecans. If you’d like to add more pecans than what this blog post calls for, you are welcome to do so! I used pre-minced pecans, but you can also chop them in a nut chopper.
Granulated Sugar: Many recipes for this type of cookie call for adding confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar) into the dough, but my grandma always used granulated sugar. They turn out great!
Powdered Sugar: This is just for sprinkling on top of the baked cookies.
Make sure to measure your flour correctly, using the scoop and level method!
Allow the cookies to cool completely before dusting them with powdered sugar.
If you dust them when they are still warm, the powdered sugar will melt into the cookie! Use a 1 Tbsp cookie scoop (#60) to get the best sizing for your Butterballs!

Nutrition