I use this recipe from Land O Lakes for snowballs. I usually make them with ground walnuts because that is what I usually have on hand. They are also good when made with finely chopped cashews, pecans, etc…
Powdered sugar-dusted snowball cookies are a favorite Christmas cookie recipe. Better yet, these pecan-filled cookies are scrumptious all year round!
www.landolakes.com
I tried the Land 'O Lakes recipe since that's the brand of butter I have in the fridge. They came out Ok, but not great. Not even close to as good as the ones from the market.
I tried to follow the recipe, but ran into a couple of problems.
1. I had all of the ingredients on hand except for the pecans. I did find a 2 cup (8 oz) bag of chopped (not ground) walnuts and since you said you use them, I did, too.
2. I loaned our food processor to a neighbor, so I poured the walnuts out on a cutting board and "crushed" them with a rolling pin. I think this might have been part of the problem. The crushed nuts were more like a paste than a powder. They seemed to mix in well with the flour, but maybe they added too much moisture or maybe they stuck together too much. The food processor might have done a better job of finely chopping the walnuts, but the amount of liquid would be the same, it seems to me.
3. Without a food processor, I did all the mixing manually. I was careful not to mix too much, but might have over- or underdone it.
4. To make the cookies, I used a 1 tablespoon measure to scoop some dough. I rolled them between my hands until they were smooth and had no cracks and then placed them on the baking sheet. The balls were abut 1 inch wide, but that is quite a bit larger than the market cookies.
5. I baked them for 16 minutes. They did not look even "lightly browned" so I left them in for another 2 minutes. They still looked too bland, so I left them in for another 1.5 minutes.
6. I followed the cooling instructions exactly. When they were totally cool (traditional definition), I tried rolling them in the powdered sugar. If I just lightly rolled them without pushing on them or simply shook the bowl to cover them, very little sugar stuck to the cookies. If I pushed them into the sugar, it tended to cake onto them. I had trouble getting a light dusting as with the market cookies.
7. I tried one of the finished cookies. The taste was nothing like the market cookies. The taste was kinda bland and nowhere near as sweet. The texture was also much less "crunchy". Overall, not bad. Edible, but not good.
8. Then it occurred to me to check the date on the bag of walnuts (which I should have done before using them). To my shock, the "expiration date" was Mar, 2018.
If I am courageous enough to try again, I will reclaim our food processor and buy unexpired nuts. Does anyone have any other suggestions for what I should do differently?
If I decide to make smaller cookies, would I then bake them for less time?