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This is Alex.  Today, in honor of the official start of winter coming up (December 21) and the huge snowstorm NYC received on Thursday, I decided to make Snow Ball cookies (also known as Russian Teacakes, Mexican Wedding Cakes or Pecan Balls.) Ingredients are straightforward: butter, powdered sugar, pecans, flour, salt, vanilla, and the recipe is surprisingly simple….just several steps.

After you preheat the oven to 350 degrees, you need to chop the pecans: I decided to chop them finely because I don’t like big chunks of pecans. But that’s a personal choice.  You can also use walnuts if you prefer.

You need 1 cup of chopped pecans.

Next step is to cream 1 cup butter with 1/2 cup powdered sugar; once creamed, add the vanilla.

The next step is to mix the flour and salt and add, along with the chopped pecans, to the butter/sugar mix.  The dough is very stiff and dry.  I used a spoon to do the final mixing.

Then you shape them into small balls and cook for 15 minutes, or until light gold.  You don’t want to over cook as they are pretty fragile.

As soon as you remove them from the oven you roll them gently in powdered sugar and let cool.  Do be careful rolling, I pressed a little hard and the cookie exploded.  Once they are cool,  you roll them again in powdered sugar.  The recipe said this would take 1/3 cup powdered sugar but I probably used a cup (I do like sugar).  In any event, the end result was delicious.