Melting Walnut Snowball Cookies



Christmas is around the corner.  I baked a lot, but they didn't make it to the blog.  Our December weekends went like a breeze.  We had house to house caroling and it was really fun.  Most of our parish members went out for caroling regardless of the cold weather.  We had our Church Christmas Family Night last weekend.  Weeks of practice sessions made everyone tied up.  Both adults and kids performed for the Christmas Family night.  We all had a great time.  I guess I gave enough reasons for my absence from blogging.  I am getting back into my regular schedule now.  Kids are on Christmas break from school and we are ready for Christmas!



I cannot ignore my blog during Christmas, so here I am with a recipe for the Melting Walnut Snowball Cookies.  They will literally melt in your mouth.  There are several names for these cookies and they are made with other nuts like Almonds too. Some call them Italian cookies or Mexican wedding cookies or Russian tea cakes, but the point is that the name doesn't matter at all; it’s the taste that matters.  This cookie has pushed all the cookies down a bit and made to the top in my list.  It’s my favorite cookie.  I highly recommend you to give this recipe a try.

Yields - 3 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup - wheat flour
1 cup - all purpose flour
1/3 tsp - salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) - butter softened at room temperature
1/2 cup - granulated sugar
1/2 cup - oil
1 tsp - vanilla extract
2 cups - walnuts
1 1/2 cup - powdered sugar for rolling and dusting

Directions:
  •  Pre heat oven to 325 F.
  •  Spread the walnut on a baking sheet and bake them for 10 minutes.
  •  Take them out and let it cool.  Pulse them in a food processor to get a mixture of fine powder with some coarse texture.
  • Sift together wheat flour, all purpose flour and salt.
  • Using the paddle attachment of a stand mixture combine the softened butter, sugar and vanilla to form a creamy mixture.  Add the oil and mix well.
  • Mix the flour mixture and combine to form a dough.  Now add the coarsely powdered roasted walnuts and combine everything to form a dough.
  • Line couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.  Scoop out the dough into small balls using a cookie dough scoop and place them 2 inches apart from each other on the baking sheet.  Bake the cookies for 15 - 17 minutes till the bottom is slightly brown.  Take the cookies out of the oven and let it sit on the baking sheet for 5 minutes to set.
  • Take half of the powdered sugar in a bowl and roll the hot cookies one at a time and place them on wire rack to cool completely.  Or you can dust some powdered sugar just before serving the cookies.


Notes:
  • Make sure to pulse the roasted walnut well to form a fine texture, otherwise it will be hard for the dough to stick together to form balls.
  • Give 5 minutes for the cookies to set on the baking sheet once taken out of the oven, otherwise they will crumble when you try to transfer them.
  • You can either roll the cookies in powdered sugar or dust the sugar on top of them according to your sweet tooth.

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