I love snowball cookies. Sometimes they’re also called wedding cookies. (Has anyone ever actually seen them at a wedding? I haven’t, but I’d like to. Please invite me to your cookie-filled wedding, is what I’m saying.) When I saw that these were jam-filled, I knew I had to try.
The recipe is a standard shortbread, with the addition of pecans. That means there are no leaveners and no eggs to make them puff or spread. Ideally they should stay in a ball, but I was a bit nervous about that because I would be inserting jammy liquid and sugar in the middle.
To get started, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and milk, followed by the flour, salt, and pecans. (Try to coat the pecans with the flour, this will help them distribute evenly.)
It will look quite crumbly after it is mixed, but that’s okay.
Plop it onto some plastic, squish it into a ball with your hands, and chill for at least an hour.
After the dough is thoroughly chilled, pinch off a bit and flatten the middle with your thumb, as if you’re making a bird’s nest. Put about a half teaspoon of strawberry jam into the center (enough to fill the nest.) With your other hand, pinch off a little more dough, shape it into another empty nest, and top the jam-filled nest. Press the seams together, and roll them into a ball.
After all this handling, the dough started to warm up a bit. I sensed another chill was needed, so I popped them into the freezer for about 5 minutes.
Bake in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes. You can see that mine spread a smidge, likely because of the jam centers, but I’ll take it. (Should we call them snow plops now, instead of snow balls?)
As soon as you get them out of the oven, carefully and quickly drop them into a bowl of powdered sugar. Because these were delicate (and not round), I set them into the bowl and heaped sugar around them, rather then rolling them in the sugar.
After they cool for 30 minutes, they may need another coating of powdered sugar. (Mine did.)
These were a delight, and it’s fun to find a surprise inside. Next time I’ll double the recipe, it didn’t make nearly enough.
Jam-Filled Snowball Cookies
1/2 C. butter, softened
1/4 C. powdered sugar
1 1/8 C. flour
pinch salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 T. milk
1/2 C. chopped pecans
1/4 C. strawberry jam
Original Recipe:
christmascookiesblog.blogspot.com/2014/12/jam-filled-snowball-christmas-cookies.html
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