Another recipe from my annual baking extravaganza.

Every year, I bake cookies for my favorite clients. They always include my famous helicopter sugar cookies and my favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. And sometimes they include so-called “magic cookie bars” or brownies.

This year, they include “Snowballs.” This is a small spherical cookie made primarily of butter, flour, and finely chopped nuts, dusted with powered sugar. Tasty without being too sweet.

Here’s the recipe for four dozen. I doubled it and got just under 8 dozen.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened. I used half butter and half margarine.
• 1/2 cup powered sugar.
• 1 teaspoon vanilla.
• 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour. I use unbleached.
• 1/4 teaspoon salt.
• 3/4 cup finely chopped nuts. I used walnuts which I chopped almost to a coarse powder in my food processor.
• More powered sugar.

Instructions:

1. Heat oven to 400°F.
2. Beat butter, measured powered sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed.
3. Stir in flour and salt. I did this in the mixer on lowest speed.
4. Stir in nuts. Again, I did it in the mixer. The dough ends up being rather dry and does not cling to the side of the mixer bowl.
5. Shape dough into one-inch balls.
6. Place balls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Because these don’t flatten out, you can get quite a few on a standard sized baking sheet or jelly roll pan. Although my first sheet had only a dozen (see photo), I was able to get two dozen on subsequent baking sheets.
7. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until set but not brown. I judged that they were done when the tops began to crack ever so slightly.
8. Immediately remove from cookie sheet and roll in powered sugar. Now although I tried this, I soon discovered that this was a very messy way to go about coating them with sugar. So instead, I put them on a wire rack with some newspaper (okay, it was Trade-a-Plane) under it and used a tea strainer to sift powered sugar over them.
9. Cool completely on wire rack.
10. Roll in powdered sugar again. Now although this is part of the recipe, I didn’t do it. Too messy!

If you have two baking sheets, I recommend using them both. It took me about 8-10 minutes just to roll up the next batch of cookies, so I was able to have a sheet in the oven at all times. This really saves energy when you’re running an oven at 400°F.

If you try this recipe, please let me know what you think. I love them.