Ginger Nut Snowballs

Snowball cookies are a holiday staple for a lot of people, I know. All those years of tradition, probably watching your Mom or your Grandma rolling them in the powdered sugar, or maybe your kids watched you. Then the first bite into one, when it is still a little warm, and you feel that burst of cool sweetness on your tongue, followed by the rich, buttery yumminess inside. This is a lot to mess with I know, but bear with me, because these are worth putting aside your traditional prejudice just a bit.

I found a similar recipe in a magazine, but I wasn’t happy with it, so I went back to my own old standby [still in my Mom’s handwriting, from 30-something years ago when she first handed these and a bunch of other Christmas cookies into my keeping] and changed it up a little to come close to what I thought they should be like. And, am I ever glad that I did! These are flat out wonderful – just as rich as the originals, but with a nice spicy twang. Then you bite into a little piece of the ginger and suddenly you are thinking that tradition ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Mincing up crystallized ginger is not a whole lot of fun. It sticks to itself and to the edge of the knife, and kind of makes a mess. I sprinkle it liberally with sugar, get it into smallish pieces with a chef’s knife and then toss it into the food processor. You have to be careful not to leave it whirling in there too long though, or it will get soft and start sticking together even worse. Eventually I decide that “minced” is a relative term, and go for chopped up pretty darned good. The nuts you will want to do in a food processor for sure – they should be ground pretty finely.

1 cup soft butter
1 & 1/2 cup confectionary [10x] sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 & 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 ground cinnamon
1/4 ground allspice
1/2 salt
1/2 cup ground nuts [pecans, walnuts or almonds]
1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

This is a typical butter cookie recipe. Cream the butter in your mixing bowl with either a stand mixer or hand mixer. Beat in the sugar until fluffy, and then the egg and vanilla. Mix in 1 & 1/2 cups of flour and the remaining ingredients. Then mix in the last cup of flour, until it is completely incorporated. Chill the dough for at least a couple hours. The colder the dough, the less it will spread out while it is baking, which lets the cookies keep a rounder shape. When it is completely chilled, portion out evenly – I used a small [2 teaspoon size] cookie scoop or disher, and roll each cookie into a ball. Place the balls on a baking sheet that has been lined with parchment paper or is well greased with shortening. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes, turning the sheet pan half way through. They will be just slightly browned. Let them cool for a couple minutes, and then roll each one in a bowl of powdered sugar, coating all sides. Cool on a rack for an hour or so and then roll in powdered sugar again. Store in an airtight container. Makes 3 & 1/2 dozen cookies.

See? Luscious! And, if you want to make sure the traditionalists are satisfied too – there is nothing stopping you from making the old standbys as well. That recipe is here: Pecan Snowballs.