Pecan Snowball Cookies
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These melt-in-your-mouth pecan snowball cookies have an irresistible moist center like a chewy shortbread cookie. It’s the perfect to bake these holidays.
I love this recipe for pecan snowball cookies. I used to find my buggy steering towards the grocery store each year for the store-bought ones. I’ve always wanted to make my own and wondered if they would be even better at home. Well, the good news is, a few years ago I FINALLY got a recipe for them from Mama! The bad news is, they taste even better than store-bought snowball cookies.
Fortunately, it takes a small list of simple ingredients to make these buttery pecan snowball cookies, like flour, sugar, vanilla extract, butter, salt, and finely chopped nuts. While I use pecans, hence the name, you can use whichever nuts you prefer. All you have to do is slowly combine the ingredients, bake the cookies, and roll them in confectioner’s sugar once cooled, so they get that snowball effect!
Trust me, the inside of these pecan snowball cookies is an absolute delight! It’s like a yummy buttery shortbread with finely chopped nuts inside.
If you’re in the market for other holiday cookies to bake this year, check out this post, which features 14 of my favorite Christmas cookie recipes. Happy baking!
Recipe Ingredients
- All-purpose flour
- Sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Butter
- Finely chopped nuts of your choice (I chop mine in the ).
- Salt
How To Make Pecan Snowball Cookies
Place your softened butter, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl and cream it until it’s git up and go done got up and went.
Like this.
Next, add your flour to the wet ingredients.
This is where the original snowball cookie recipe said to sift the flour. Pfft. Right. I have a sifter and it sits upon a pretty little shelf in my kitchen where it collects dust. I don’t sift. It is against my personal convictions.
Just dump your flour in there. Be rebellious with me.
Pour in your vanilla extract.
The recipe calls for two teaspoons but y’all know I just kinda pour and leave it up to the good Lord how much ends up in there.
It’s called divine baking – and I just made that term up. How cool is that? Stick with me, we’ll be the cool kids, even if no one knows it but us!
Oh, you’re gonna need to scrape down the sides of your bowl some but you’ll figure that out…
Dump in your finely pecans.
Oh, now you need to mix it all up again until well combined.
Like this.
Go ahead and get you a pinch of that dough and taste it. Be sure to save some to bake though…I know it will be tempting.
It’s baking time!
I used my little cookie dough scoop and made some pretty generous-sized cookies. You can just make them with your hands and make little one-inch balls and have twice as many as I did.
However, I was in a lazy, cookie dough scoop kinda mood and when I’m in those moods I try not to deny myself the pleasure of indulging in the easy way out.
Now, bake ’em at 325 for 20 minutes, ensuring you don’t overbake them.
I made about 30 but you can easily make 50 or so instead.
After they cool, roll each in powdered sugar.
These pecan snowball cookies are absolutely, melt in your mouth, delicious.
Here is what the inside of one would look like if your teeth were actually a butter knife.
What pretty little snowballs! One bite and you’ll be making this every year from here on out!
Storage
- Store your cookies in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge for up to 1 week.
- You can also freeze either the unbaked cookie dough or the baked cookies for up to 3 months. Once you thaw the baked snowball cookies, roll them in sugar once more.
Recipe Notes
- Make sure to use in the and not , as we want the batter to be nice and smooth.
- If you have time, you can toast the pecans in the oven for about 10 minutes before chopping them and adding them to the cookie dough. It really elevates the flavor!
- Don’t be afraid to double-roll your snowball cookies in powdered sugar so they truly resemble snowballs!
- Besides pecans, you can use walnuts, almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, or cashews. Just ensure they’re roasted and finely chopped before adding to the cookie dough.
- If you opt for almonds, you can also add 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract to the recipe to enhance the flavor. Another option is substituting the vanilla extract for lemon juice and adding 1 tablespoon of lemon zest to make almond lemon snowballs.
- Speaking of almonds… substitute the all-purpose flour for almond flour to make gluten-free snowball cookies.
- Here are more additions to add to your cookie dough when you fold in the pecans:
- 2/3 cup of sprinkles
- 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips to make chocolate snowballs.
Recipe FAQs
What are some other names for snowball cookies?
Snowball cookies are also called Mexican wedding cookies (which we have a recipe for right here), Russian tea cakes, snowdrop cookies, Southern Butterballs, Pecan Sandies, and Italian butter cookies. But no matter what you call them, they’re utterly delicious!
You may also like these other holiday cookie recipes:
Candy Cane Cookies (Elf Favorite!)
Thumbprint Cookies with Jam or Preserves
Southern Plate’s Must-Make Christmas Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup softened butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups finely ground nuts of your choice I'm using pecans
- confectioner's sugar
Instructions
- Cream together the butter, sugar, and salt until fluffy. Add the flour and vanilla extract and mix well, scraping down the sides as needed. Add finely chopped pecans and mix until well incorporated.1 cup softened butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 cups finely ground nuts of your choice
- Shape into one-inch balls of cookie dough (mine are bigger because I use a little cookie dough scoop) and place them on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes, but don't let them brown.
- Cool the cookies. When cooled, roll each snowball cookie in confectioner's sugar.confectioner's sugar
Video
Nutrition
“Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over….
it became a butterfly!”
Submitted by Judy Clark. Submit your quote or read others to help brighten your day by clicking here.
Perfect cookie recipe for the HUGE bag of pecans that my Mother in law gave me from her sister’s pecan tree in Mississippi 🙂
We call them Mexican Wedding cookies, too and make them into crescent shapes. ‘Cause we’re *fancy* like that 🙂 One of my favorites!
I’m so glad that you know the proper pronunciation of the word Pecan . It isn’t Pee Can , as much as I love Paula Deen , I cringe whenever I hear her call Puh Kawns, Pee Cans ……….. that is a whole different situation right there….wink, wink ….
in the south it is pukans, sorry we are just country but we love everybody regardless of how you say it, just call it nuts
@ Joyce They freeze well so you can make them ahead and them hide them down in the freezer to save for Christmas!!!!
I love to make these! You can make a ton really quickly! One thing I do it make sure I roll/shake them in the powdered sugar while still warm but we use some of those fine glitter flakes that you get in a little jar in the cake decorating aisle. Sometimes red and green, sometimes blues, but it just gives them a little sparkle for the holidays and makes them perfect for gift giving! I think these are my favorite too. When I bake them I try to make sure they are packaged and ready to get out of the house FAST, before I have to make more because I ATE them!!!
I make these every year for my family’s Christmas Eve party – my own grandmother used to request her own tin, so I used to always pack away twenty or so for her, along with her present. Sometimes (to get in the holiday spirit!) I will add green and red sprinkles to the powdered sugar, which makes each cookie white, red, and green!
Only difference is that my family always called them Mexican Wedding Cookies.
Fun and Festive!!!
I made these last night and oh my….they were so delicious!!! I had to come back on here to tell you that. I am so excited that I found this website while I was on southern savers. I was watching you on how to make a homemade bow and that’s how I came across this website and I don’t know what I would do without it now. I can actually cook now and we no longer eat out thoughout the week like we used to (and most of the time not on the weekends either). I am too excited about finding the next recipe to try!! You don’t know how much of a blessing you are to everyone. Thank you!!
Oh my goodness, thank you so much!! You are just too sweet and have made my day!!
Gratefully,
Christy
I got back on here tonight becasue me and my daughter were making these to give to her kindergarten teacher tomorrow for the last day of school and I happened to see where you commented back on my comment! You just made my day by commenting back on something I wrote…I feel so special that someone famous wrote back to me!!:) And by the way, I ordered your cookbook from Amazon yesterday and am so excited about getting it soon! I have been just printing them off like crazy from the website but since I just love ALL the recipes, I decided that it would be cheaper just to buy the cookbook instead of buying more ink for my printer.Still tickled that you wrote back..lol…