Saturday, December 18, 2010

Day 7: 12 Days of Cookies Countdown


Another day down and another day closer!

Today, day 7, I am bringing you the wonderful Snowball Cookie. These are the cookie with many variations, and with that comes many names....The most common variation is the "nut" part of the cookie. I used pecans, but I have also seen walnuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, cashews, etc. There are also the add-ins of the liquid variety like maple syrup and liquor. Sounds good no?

I did, but i still decided to go the classic route....with Pecans.

I also learned a lesson with this recipe....read it! Even if you think you know what you are doing...read it through thoroughly. I neglected to do so, and I got lucky. The mistake that I made was minor. Let me see if you can notice it...Take a look at the picture below:


The cookie on the left it pre-bake and the one on the right is post-bake. Can you spot my mix-up? Yes, I coated them in powdered sugar before baking! Had a read the recipe I would not have done this. But, again, I got lucky and this did not ruin the cookies, the powdered sugar just "melted" on the cookies a little. So, realizing my mistake after all the cookies were baked, I remedied it by just re-coating them in more powdered sugar. It can't hurt right? It worked, they looked great, like a snowball is supposed to work, and surprisingly they were not too sweet either! Score! So, here is the correct recipe...


~Pecan Snowball Cookies~
(Adapted from Sprinkle Bakes)
2 c. flour, sifted
1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. chopped pecans
1-3 tbsp. milk
1 c. powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 325 F. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the vanilla extract and mix well. Add the flour and salt. Mix until partially incorporated and then add in the nuts. Mix until a thick and uniform dough is formed.*
Roll cookies into 1 in. balls and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 20 min. or until the cookies are slightly golden and fragrant. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely on the pan before trying to remove from the baking sheet. 
Once the cookies have cooled, place the powdered sugar in a bowl and roll the balls in the powdered sugar until coated. Remove and eat! 

*Note: I had some issues with the dough so I added some milk. It came together a little bit, but it was really difficult to get them to come together. I really had to squeeze! I also rolled them a bit too big. Once bitten into, they also crumbled a lot, I guess that was a side effect of the too-soft dough.

While it was good to try a new recipe, I think I would like to try something different. These were good, don't get me wrong...I just know they can be better! So, the search continues for another snowball recipe. Maybe one with liqueur? ;-)

While baking up these snowballs, I was reminded of recess growing up. At the grade school I went to we had a large parking lot that was part of our recess area. It was plowed during the winter which resulted in massive snow piles around the surrounding fence. These piles were huge! I would say that some were up wards of 6 or 7 feet high. So, hugh snow piles + kids = snow forts! We built the best forts, with tunnels and little caves, everything. And what is a fort without protection? Yes, we even had snowball storage area were there were tons of snowballs just waiting to be used. (which never could be because snowball throwing during recess was not allowed) SO, tons of snowballs were all lined up in our forts and when I had all my snowball cookies all lined up on the baking sheet, I recalled this wonderful childhood memory!

Yeah, Im cool like that! ;-)

What's your best recess memory?

ENJOY!

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