Snowball Pecan Cookies
Snowball Pecan Cookies: These melt in your mouth Christmas butter pecan cookies are made with the perfect amount of butter, pecans and powdered sugar. Not too sweet but completely delicious. Exactly what your Christmas cookie tray needs.
Can I use Walnuts instead of Pecans?
- The main differences between walnuts and pecans is the taste. For this recipe pecans are the way to go.
- PECANS: Offer a wonderful rich, buttery flavor.
- WALNUTS: Have more of a bitterness to them. Toasting them will help the walnuts to lose some of their bitterness.
Snowball Pecan Cookies Ingredients
- FLOUR: All purpose—no special flour for this recipe. Simple is best
- BUTTER: One of the most important ingredients to this recipe is the butter…..REAL UNSALTED BUTTER not margarine.
- PECANS: Another important ingredient. Please make sure your pecans are fresh.
- POWDERED SUGAR: Adds a touch of sweetness but not too much.
- VANILLA EXTRACT: Please use REAL vanilla extract NOT imitation
- ALMOND EXTRACT: Don’t skimp on this ingredient. If you don’t have it… get it. The almond extract will bring the flavors all together to create the perfect cookie.
Butter Pecan Cookie Variations
- This butter pecan cookie is mostly known for its crescent shape (same recipe, different shape). FOR THE CRESCENT SHAPE COOKIE RECIPE CLICK HERE→PECAN CRESCENT COOKIES
- Instead of rolling the warm cookies in powdered sugar try adding a brown butter glaze. FOR THE BROWN BUTTER GLAZED COOKIE RECIPE CLICK HERE→BROWN BUTTER GLAZED PECAN CRESCENT COOKIES
CAN SNOWBALL PECAN COOKIES BE FROZEN?
MORE COOKIES FOR YOUR CHRISTMAS COOKIE TRAY
Snowball Pecan Cookies
Yield:
MAKES 30 COOKIES
Prep Time:
20 minutes
Cook Time:
15 minutes
Total Time:
35 minutes
These melt in your mouth Christmas butter pecan cookies are made with the perfect amount of butter, pecans and powdered sugar. Not too sweet but completely delicious. Exactly what your Christmas cookie tray needs.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup ground pecans
- 2½ cups powdered sugar, divided
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
Instructions
- Mix butter until creamy, add the flour, nuts, ½ cup sugar, salt and extracts.
- Mix until well combined.
- Refrigerate covered 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 375°.
- Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Shape cookie dough into 1-inch balls and place on prepared cookie sheets.
TIP: To help the cookies keep their round shape freeze 30 minutes before baking.
- Bake 15 to 18 minutes.
- When cool enough to handle (about 5 minutes) roll hot cookies in the remaining 2 cups confectioners' sugar.
- Cool on wire rack.
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These cookies look so good,cant wait to try them,look a lot like Danish wedding cookies and my hubby can eat a whole bag of them .
My mom and I used to make these every Christmas. Delicious! I have not been able to find her recipe. She called them Kokoons. I’ve seen similar recipes for Mexican Wedding Cakes or Russian Tea Cakes. I put together from those recipes and what I remembered, but each time they just weren’t the same. Ingredients were the same as this recipe EXCEPT refrigerating. And, thinking about it, we did refrigerate the dough. So, I think I’ll try it again. Thanks.
I hope this is the recipe you’ve been searching for Paulette. Merry Christmas!
Thank you. I can’t wait to try it again. Merry Christmas to you as well.
I couldn’t wait and I made these this evening. They turned out better than my other tries with other recipes. Must have been the refrigeration of the dough. Thank you very much. I probably would have gone on trying or eventually given up altogether. Now I have a homemade treat for Christmas visitors. Enjoy your Christmas and thanks again.
One of my favorite cookies. Just this year I heard about roasting the pecans prior. I did them at 350° for 15 minutes. It truly gave the cookies a richer pecan flavor
I love adding toasted nuts to recipes! 🙂
If you freeze them before you bake, to keep the shape…do you bake them longer?
Hi Shellea, No, thirty minutes isn’t long enough to actually freeze them just to firm them up. You should be fine with the listed bake time.
Thank you for all of these great recipes.
You’re Welcome Irene! 🙂
Very glad to have come across your recipe. I had a cookbook that had a recipe for pecan snowball cookies that were like these, same ingredients, except they also included cream cheese which I think was a substitute for all or some of the butter (can’t remember). They were so delicious and literally melted in your mouth. I lost the cookbook in a move a couple of years ago. Happy to have something to replace that recipe. I’ll be making these very soon. ?
Awww….thanks Kristin for sharing your story. I’m glad you found this recipe too! 🙂
I actually bought the ingredients tonight to make them. However, I did not get pecans as there are people in my family who cannot eat nuts. Do you think these would still be good even without the nuts? Will the almond flavor be enough to compensate? I used to make the cookies in my missing recipe without them and they were still good. Just wondering if the same will be true for these.
Hi Sheryl, well you have become my go-to for all things Delicious! From your amazing pecan pie cheesecake fudge to these outstanding easy VERY tasty treats. Glad I found you and thanks!
Wow! Thank you Robyn!
I love someone that knows the proper way to give you their recipies! Thank you.
Wow Pearl! What a great compliment. Thanks! 🙂
Is that powdered sugar on outside of cookie ? Thank you
Hi Christine, yes that is confectioners’ sugar.
Can you freeze these and for how long.
Hi Rosemary, I would only freeze the dough. I don’t think the confectioners’ sugar would hold up well to the moisture of the freezer. You keep the dough in the freezer up to 3 months.
Can’t wait to try these. My recipe did not have the almond flavoring.
Thank you ?
Hi Donna, The almond extract makes a huge difference. Enjoy! 🙂
How many cookies does this recipe make. I would most likely need to quadruple the recipe.
Hi Anne, The recipe states 30 cookies.