Snowball Cookies with Spelt Flour: Baking Gift Idea

Snowball cookies are also known as Mexican cookies. A perfect Christmas or holiday time baking treats or bake for a homemade gift idea. My Spelt Snowball cookies look fun and are quick to make and bake simple ingredients: walnuts (or almonds), spelt flour (or regular), butter, sugar and vanilla. Once cooled and then dusted with icing sugar, make sure you don't have a snowball fight, as they are much better when saved for eating.
What do snowball cookies taste like? They are a simple soft melt-in-your-mouth nutty shortbread biscuit. They are very similar to a Greek biscuit/cookie recipe called Kourabiedes. If you don't care for walnuts, swap them out for almonds or ground hazelnuts instead.

Watch my snowball cookies video below for step-by-step instructions.

Takes = 30 mins
Makes = 30
Bakes = 15 mins

Ingredients

Spelt Flour (or regular flour) – 125g (1 cup)
Walnuts (or ground almonds, pistachios or hazelnuts) – 170g (about 1 3/4 cups)
Castor Sugar – 50g (1/4 cup)
Pinch of Salt
Vanilla extract – 1 tsp
Unsalted butter – 110g (1/2 cup)
Icing sugar – 125g (1/2 cup)

Method

PREHEAT oven to 160˚C fan, grease and line two baking trays or one large baking tray.
TOAST walnuts in the oven on low 150˚C for 15 minutes, cool slightly then finely chop.
ADD chopped walnuts, castor sugar, flour, salt and vanilla into a medium-sized bowl using your fingertips blend the butter in until it resembles bread crumbs, and keep mixing with your hands until the dough bowl forms.
SCOOP with a teaspoon of dough and roll a small between your hands to form a small ball. Place on the tray evenly spaced.
BAKE at 160˚C for 15 minutes, check at 10 minutes as the trays might need rotating.
COOL slightly then coat in a bit of icing sugar.
COOL completely then sprinkle with another veil of icing sugar.
STORE in a sealed container, they should last for a few weeks if you can resist not eating them all in the first few days.