Grammy made wonderful desserts, including cookies, and this is one of our favorite family recipes.

We’ve talked about renaming these “Snowballs,” or “Winter Pecan Cookies,” but we still call them Nutballs, even if the name is kind of NSFW. We go through dozens of them around the holidays, making them for ourselves and for friends. We are happy to report that small children love to make and eat these, so making a batch is a great way to keep small fry occupied after school is out for winter break.

• 1 cup butter, softened*
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1-2 cups ground pecans
• powdered sugar

Grind pecans until you have about two cups of pecan meal. You can use a food processor, but if you have a hand grinder, the result will be lighter and flakier.

Mix butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix well. Chill dough at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Shape into 1-inch balls and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. After baking, gently roll in powdered sugar while still warm (it sometimes works better to place cookies in sugar, and spoon sugar over them to coat). Allow to cool before storing.

*This year, we made a vegan version with Miyoko’s cashew plant-based butter. They were as tasty as the originals, and we didn’t notice any difference in the texture at all.

Tips and Tricks

• Ania and Laura make lightly-packed balls, resulting in lighter, fluffier cookies. Carla packs the dough tightly, which makes the cookie heavier and denser, and less likely to crumble on the first bite … but more susceptible to cracking during baking.
• When storing, put a sheet of wax paper or parchment paper between each layer of cookies. The powdered sugar coating will get gummy in a closed container, and if you don’t separate the layers, the cookies will stick together and the coating will peel off.