Snowball Cookies
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Snowballs (sometimes also called Mexican Wedding Cookies or Russian Tea Cookies) are one of my all-time favorite Christmas cookies, and I was in total shock when I realized that I had never shared a recipe for them here on the site! I should be ashamed of myself. These aren’t one of those cookies that my mom made year-in and year-out (she had other specialties), but they were always a favorite of mine when I would see them sitting on a cookie platter. As a kid, I’m sure that I was drawn primarily to the half-inch of powdered sugar that coats the outside of these cookies. You know you’ve found a good snowball cookie when you have to dust yourself off from head to toe when you’re done eating them. In addition to all of the wonderful sugar, I love the shortbread-like texture of the cookies, and how utterly loaded they are with nuts. Delicious!
Like so many of my favorite baked goods, these cookies are easily adaptable to your (and your family’s) personal taste. My mom likes pecans, but she also adores walnuts, so sometimes we bake up a batch of those. My Chief Culinary Consultant’s mom makes hers with almonds and adds a splash of almond extract. As is the case with so many recipes that have been around for generations, most families have their own favorite way of making them, or a special little twist they add. I love the flavor of the pecans and the varied texture that using ground nuts as well as finely chopped nuts provide. I guarantee there is no wrong way to make them… as long as you make them with love 
Does your family have a snowball cookie recipe? How do you like yours?
One year ago: Nutter Butter Snowmen
Two years ago: Homemade Peanut Brittle
Five years ago: Roasted Red Potatoes
Snowball Cookies
Yield: About 48 cookies
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 18 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
A recipe for Snowball Cookies, shortbread-style cookies loaded with nuts and rolled in powdered sugar. They're also known as Mexican Wedding Cookies and Russian Tea Cookies.
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups finely chopped pecans, divided
¾ teaspoon salt
1 cup (8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened but still cool
⅓ cup granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1½ cups powdered sugar, for rolling cookies after bakingDirections:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and adjust the oven racks to the upper- and lower-middle positions. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
2. Mix the flour, 1 cup of the chopped pecans, and the salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
3. Place the remaining chopped nuts in a food processor and process until they are the texture of coarse cornmeal, 10 to 15 seconds; stir into the flour mixture and set aside.
4. Cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla, then scrape the sides of the bowl. Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until the dough just begins to come together but still looks scrappy, about 15 seconds. Scrape the sides of the bowl again and continue beating at low speed until the dough is cohesive, about 10 more seconds.
5. Roll a heaping tablespoon of dough between the palms of your hands and place on the prepared baking sheets. The cookies will only spread a little bit, so you can place them fairly close together. Bake until the tops are pale golden and the bottoms are just beginning to brown, 17 to 19 minutes, rotating the baking sheets front to back and top to bottom halfway through the baking time.
6. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for 2 minutes, then transfer them to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes.
7. Place the powdered sugar in a large zip-top bag. Working with 3 or 4 cookies at a time, place them in the bag of sugar and gently toss to coat them thoroughly. Gently shake off any excess. Allow the cookies to sit for at least an hour, or up to overnight, and then repeat the process. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
(Recipe adapted from Baking Illustrated)
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I love these cookies too. Thanks, I will try the recipe soon.
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We always called these Russian tea cakes in my house. I made these last week, they are one of my favorite Christmas cookies! I read last week that traditional Russian tea cakes are made with hazelnuts while Mexican wedding cakes are usually made with pecans and add cinnamon to the powdered sugar dusting. No matter how you make them though they are delicious, especially with a cup of coffee.
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Oh, yum! I grew up with these, too. The were always made from the Betty Crocker cookbook with either pecans or walnuts. The almond version you mentioned sounds perfect, I may just have to give that a try!
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I really like these (except for the getting covered in powdered sugar when you eat one part) but rarely had them growing up or even as an adult. I might have to try your recipe!
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These were a required staple for our Christmas cookie platter when I was growing up; in fact I’ve been thinking the last few days I need to get around to baking a batch myself this year. We always called them “pecan logs” or “pecan fingers” because we shaped them into small, thin “logs” instead of balls/rounds. We also dust them in powdered sugar while they’re still pretty warm, after cooling for only about 10 minutes. They’re one of my absolute favorite cookies, but then I love any and all shortbread type cookies.
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We always put pecans in ours and called them Sandies. These are special to me because my grandmother always made them. She has alzheimer’s now. I follow the example she set and bake way too many cookies at Christmas time- that compulsion skipped my mother and landed directly on me!
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We used to help our mom in making these. I just love them
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I love snowballs – we always have to have them at Christmas. When my grandma used to make them, she tinted some red and green to be more festive : )
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Thank you for the recipe. When you asked for favorite cookie yesterday this was the cookie I described. Now I just may have to make some.
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Love these cookies, too..made mine last week
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I also love these cookies. I make mine with walnuts and vanilla extract. Have had them with almond and they are just as yummy. I’ve heard them called “nut balls” and “butter balls” also. They are good as chocolate snowballs! Happy Holidays!!!
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I love Sandies too – with lots of pecans!
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I love these cookies! One of my favorites.
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These cookies look delicious! It’s always so nice to make things that you had while growing up, it brings a real sense of nostalgia to Christmas.
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Love these cookies–I make them with walnuts sometimes, and they are good too!
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These look Great!
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I adore these cookies and it brings back such wonderful memories of my grandmother.
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We use pecans and call them “Pacoons” in my family. They are my mom’s favorite cookie so I have to make sure I make them at Christmas (and she gets a batch for her birthday). Oh, and she doesn’t share!
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Yummy cookies that remind me of Christmas time.
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It’s been a long time since I had one of these. What surprises me is the 3/4 teaspoon of salt. I am wondering if my mother used salt too, I would have to call her and while on that, ask her, if she’s willing to bake some for Christmas.
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Thanks for the recipe. I was going to look up this recipe today but now I don’t have to! Do you know if the dough freezes well?
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Michelle on December 13th, 2012 at 11:43 am
Hi Jennifer, I haven’t frozen this dough, but I imagine that it would. I would probably roll the cookies into balls, and then freeze them that way, so you just need to pop them on the cookie sheets and bake (maybe adding an additional minute or two to the baking time).
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Cynthia on December 13th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
The dough freezes fine but definitely ball them first, as Michelle suggested. I made the mistake of freezing it as one big blob one time and it took too long to thaw enough to be able to shape the balls.
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I just saw a recipe for this cookie with mini chocolate chips!!
It was from Toll house – sounds fabulous!!!
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We call them RTBs or Russian Tea Balls. We use walnut meal in ours. It’s a favorite for Christmas every year. Our recipe uses powdered sugar in the cookies and rolled in them after. We typically freeze them after they are done and re-roll them in powdered sugar once we are serving them.
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Love them, my favorite.
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We’ve always called these pecan balls and they have long been a Christmas staple in our house! My mom remembers the days before she had a food processor and had to manually chop all of the nuts. These stay good a surprisingly long amount of time too.
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These were the only cookies I remember my mother baking at Christmas time. I stopped baking them for a while because my daughter doesn’t like nuts, silly child, but I will have to bake them again this year.
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These are my FAVORITE christmas cookie! we roll them in sugar while they are still hot…just a few minutes out of the oven so they don’t fall apart. That way they can hold more sugar
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I had just commented on here yesterday about these being my favorite! So glad you posted the recipe!! I will def be making these this weekend!
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I’ve always referred to these as Russian tea cookies. My mom made these when I was a kid and they are by far my favorite cookie around the holidays.
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I love these cookies and make them every Christmas. They’re so easy and delishious!!! I usually do half walnuts and half pecans. When I first started making them the recipe I used said to use either walnuts OR pecans, but I couldn’t decide, so I did it my way and have been ever since. They’re so good!
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These are irresistible every single Christmas!!
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One of my favorites, but I do not use nuts.
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Wow!! I love these cookies (I am sure that the powdered sugar has a lot to do with it, too… lol). I can’t wait to try this recipe – I hope I don’t make too much of a mess!!!
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Ohhh, what a wonderful cookie!!
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Oooh, snowballs! My kids favorite!
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I don’t suppose I can persuade you to send these to Alphabakes? We’ve got a prize this month and the letter is S, so these would be perfect! Details are here:
http://www.themorethanoccasionalbaker.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/alphabakes-december-2012.html
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Snowball cookies are a family tradition for us! Love them!
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I’m not clear if you are saying to start with 2 cup of pecan halves and finely chop them or do you want to end up with 2 cups after the pecan halves have been chopped. If it’s the latter, what quantity of pecan halves do you start with to end up with the 2 cups finely chopped?
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Sandy on December 13th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
“2 cups of finely chopped pecans” (as opposed to 2 cups of pecan halves, finely chopped.”) So you measure them after they are finely chopped.
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Laurie on December 13th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
Thanks. That’s what I thought but wanted to clarify to be certain.
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Michelle on December 13th, 2012 at 11:02 pm
Hi Laurie, You want to end up with 2 cups of finely chopped pecans. I don’t pre-measure, I just take a big handful, chop it up, see how much I have, then grab a little more at at time until I get what I need.
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Laurie on December 13th, 2012 at 11:05 pm
Thanks! I make these cookies every year but this year I’m going to try your version.
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I cannot wait to surprise my Mom with these!
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these look great! can you make them without nuts? or does that ruin the cookie?
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Michelle on December 13th, 2012 at 11:02 pm
Hi Chay, I have not made them without nuts, but I think you could try.
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Navar on December 14th, 2012 at 11:21 am
Try them with mini choclate chips– they are delicious that way too.
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These cookies became my favorite courtesy of my mother-in-law. She calls them crescent cookies and shapes them in a crescent moon shape and uses walnuts. Funny since I was never a big walnut person, but because she chopped the walnuts so finely I didn’t mind them. This was her mother’s recipe who was a baker from Scotland.
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Beth on December 19th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
I grew up with these in the 50′s and my mother also called them cresants. She rolled them in the palm of her hands and made a long strip and curved them around like a cresant shape and then baked them. That must have been the thing in the 50′s. No one I have mentioned them to has ever hear of them being called cresants. Now I found someone. So I did not imagie it.
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I love Mexican Wedding Cakes! I didn’t really appreciate how good they were until I got a little older. And I still remember the time my Mom and I were having a marathon baking session just a few days before Christmas, trying to get everything baked on time, and Mom forgot to put the flour in the cookies. They were lovely flat butter cookies.
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Yum! I love these cookies…I like mine with a lot of nuts (pecans). I never thought of grinding the nuts…I will have to try this recipe out. Thanks BEB
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We have a type of cookie in Malaysia similar to this which we call ‘Biskut Arab’ or Arab biscuits. Also called ‘Kuih Makmur’, I think. The ingredients are a little different but they still have nuts and a coat of icing sugar. My Dad’s favourites
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We’ve always used walnuts in a lot of our holiday baking because my parents have a walnut tree that starts producing around fall/winter time. These look delicious! You really can’t go wrong with anything coated in powdered sugar
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I make these every year! Mine are a little different, though, and have shortening in them instead of butter. My hubby loves them!
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We call them polvorones, I usually make them with almons, and can fill it with a little of guava or a hershey kiss, but my favorite is with hazelnut and a little hershey kiss inside, is just divine.
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Yummy!
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Do you have to use nuts?
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Michelle on December 13th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Hi Ashley, I think they make for a fabulous cookie, but you certainly don’t have to. You may need to add a little extra flour, though, to compensate for the ground nuts.
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My family has made these for decades at Christmas – a must have! We call them “pecan sandies” but it seems like almost every culture has a variation on this cookie, which just goes to show how universally appealing they are. We always make the log shape and roll them in powdered sugar while still warm which creates a melted effect and then a very light 2nd dusting of powdered sugar after completely cool to pretty them up. The log shape is much easier to eat than the ball shape. On second thought, maybe that’s not a good thing!
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There was an adapted recipe for these in the December Penzey’s catalog called, “Christmas Morning Cookies”- the woman who submitted it added copious amounts of almond extract and a dried cherry right on top. I used pecans in mine and can’t remember if she used almonds- anyway, they were beautiful with that cherry on top, and as delicious as ever!
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My mother used to roll them into little logs-about the length and circumference of her little finger and curve them in a crescent shape. We called them “rat tails.” The shape made them very fragile when they were hot and being rolled in the powdered sugar. We got to eat the broken ones right away. The “good ones” were saved for company.
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One of my top 10 Christmas cookies!
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Yum!
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Sound heavenly. Love nuts!!
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LOVE making snowballs but mine are never round. Yours look perfect. I rolled mine in peppermint this year.
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We always called them Russian Tea Cookies (funny about all the different names!) growing up and they’re one my mom made every year. They’re not a favorite of mine, but they definitely remind me of Christmases past!
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My husband was raving about some cookies that one of his co-worker’s brought. I kept saying they sounded like snowball cookies and he looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. At last! I can make them, since he loves them so much. These are such a classic, that I haven’t had in years.
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THIS IS MY CHILDHOOD.
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I love snowball cookies. I shared a very similar recipe on my blog. They are always a hit.
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These are one of my “must make” cookies each year. So messy, but so good.
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I like my Snowball cookies with a touch of lemmon. I grate lemon zest and splash in a bit of lemon extract and I like the lemon ones with almonds. The traditional one I like with pecans.
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We roll these into logs and call them pecan fingers. We add a T of ice water to the batter in the end; makes it a great consistency for rolling.
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We call them Russian Tea Ball cookies and were my favorite as a child. My recipe calls for slightly different amounts of flour, salt and nuts and I use sifted conf. sugar (1/2 cup) rather than regular sugar.
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These look so tasty! Snowball cookies always remind me of the holidays. I love the melt-in-your-mouth flavor of the pecans powdered sugar!
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I made these the other night and they were great. I planned to use almonds but I was a little low on them so I used almonds for the ground nuts and half almonds half macadamia nut for the finely chopped nuts, they came out so good I think I’ll keep making them with this combination of nuts from now on. I was also out of parchment so I just greased my cookie sheet and they came out fine.
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one of my favorite cookies also…definitely with pecans!
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I made these today and they didn’t stick together well. I know they are supposed to be sort of crumbly, but these are almost impossible to eat. I don’t know what I did wrong…
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I thought I would try this since I have made Pecan Sandies for a while, and thought maybe your recipe with the dusted sugar was better. This is a first- I think my recipe might be better- I really think the dusted sugar, while a nice visual, takes away from the taste. I thought I would provide you with my recipe, and let you do a taste test, and let me know if you agree:
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Pecan Sandies Recipe
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*1 cup butter
*1/2 cup granulated sugar
*2 tsp water
*2 tsp vanilla
*2 cups flour sifted
*1 cup chopped pecans
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1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Cream 1 cup butter and 1/2 cup sugar.
3. Add 2 teaspoons water and 2 teaspoons vanilla.
4. Add 2 cups sifted flour and 1 cup chopped pecans.
5. Chill 3-4 hours.
6. Form balls place an ungreased cookie sheet. You can bake them as balls but I prefer flattening them out to a more traditional cookie shape.
7. Bake at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes.
This pecan sandies recipe makes about 36 cookies.
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I sell Christmas Cookies and this is one of the better sellers !!! If you want to make them even better, toast the nuts in the oven for 15 minutes at 350 then cool. My friends husband told her that mine were better than her’s and she wanted to know what I did different. Also if you want a different variation I also make a Cherry Walnut Snowball with 1/3 cup chopped marachino cherries, 1 tsp almond extract instead of vanilla and walnuts instead of pecans and a little red food color that make them a nice pink color so you can tell the difference!!
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Tricia,
I tried your recipe, and it was DELISH!!!! You are right, the dusted sugar really takes away from the taste of the pecans, and even the consistency is better without the dusted sugar– your Pecan Sandies are the best!!!! Thanks for sharing, and Merry Christmas!
-Blondie
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Hi! I love this recipe. I actually made mine with toasted hazelnuts and almonds, and they were really good. Yours look perfect though.
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Great recipe, but you have the wrong amount of ounces marked for the butter. 1 cup is 16 ounces, not 8.
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Michelle on March 31st, 2013 at 2:43 pm
Kayla, Actually 1 cup of butter IS 8 ounces.
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My recipe is called Sand Tarts. Started making them when I was in high school. They were my dads favorite. I am almost 64 now so my family now likes them too.
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