Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookies
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Buttery, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread cookies filled with mini-chocolate chips and rolled in powdered sugar.
Welcome to recipe #2 in the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies!
So today. Today we have snowballs. But not just any ol’ snowballs– chocolate chip snowballs. Because I love taking a classic and doing something fun with it.
I first brought snowballs (aka Russian tea cakes) to the blog for last year’s 12 Days celebration. They are an April family specialty, and they’ve always been one of my favorites.
They’re a simple shortbread cookie wrapped in a hug (actually, two hugs) of powdered sugar. I mean, how can you not love that?
They’re unfussy, don’t require any fancy ingredients, and are a definite crowd-pleaser.
Classic snowballs are filled with nuts. These chocolate chip snowballs do not have nuts in them, so it’s hard to find someone who wouldn’t like them! Because there really, truly are people out there who do not enjoy nuts in or out of cookies.
To those people I say “GIVE ME ALL OF THE COOKIES WITH NUTS.”
I digress.
As I said, these cookies are unfussy, but they do take a bit of hands-on time.
Once you pull the batter together, you’ll need to chill the dough for an hour. When you’re ready to bake the cookies, they only take 10-12 minutes in the oven.
Once they are cool enough to handle but not completely cool, they get a nice bath in some powdered sugar.
And then another bath in more powdered sugar when they are completely cool.
Remember those two powdered sugar hugs I was talking about? Yeah. Let’s get all up in that and make some group hugs out of this.
What I love most about snowballs is that when you put them on a cookie tray, they “snow” on everything around them. My MIL always puts together beautiful Christmas cookie trays, and her finishing touches are snowballs in every available nook and cranny, and a light dusting of powdered sugar over the whole tray.
Plus, since most cookies aren’t stark white like snowballs, they add a nice contrast to the overall look of a collection of cookies.
Ohhhh! How gorgeous would some chocolate cayenne cookies + chocolate chip snowballs look on the same tray?! I mean, someone do that and get back to me, please??
Simple, classic, have “winter/Christmas/holidays/snow” written all over them, perfect for the holidays or just another Friday night bake-a-thon, you’ll find these chocolate chip snowballs are an easy addition to your cookie recipe collection.
Make room, friends. We are only 2 cookies into this party and there’s plenty more where they came from.
Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- ¼ cup + ½ cup powdered sugar divided
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup + 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour be sure to measure properly
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a medium size bowl with a hand mixer or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, ¼ cup of the powdered sugar, and vanilla on medium speed until smooth. Add the flour and salt and beat again on medium until completely combined. Add chocolate chips and stir with a spatula until evenly dispersed. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.
- When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 400ºF. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Set aside.
- Roll dough into approximately 1" balls using a cookie scoop or a Tablespoon measure (I use this #50 cookie scoop for all of my standard size cookies). Bake until set, about 10-12 minutes. You do not want cookies to brown at all. Remove from oven and transfer cookies to wire rack. Allow to cool until you are able to handle the cookies. Roll warm cookies in remaining ½ cup of powdered sugar. Return cookies to wire rack and allow to cool completely. When completely cool, roll in powdered sugar again. Cookies remain fresh in an airtight container at room temperature up to 2 weeks.
Nutrition Disclosure
All nutritional values are approximate and provided to the reader as a courtesy. Changing ingredients and/or quantities will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.
I’ve never made snowball cookies! But now I have to! I think I’ll make three batches – one with nuts, one with chocolate chips, and one with both 😉
I am a nutty cookie lady too – hahahahahahahahahaha. No. Really.
I love anything chocolate chip (which you already know 😉 ) so these shortbread cookies are right up my alley. And a powdered sugar hug? I’ll take two of those for myself!
Hahaha, I knew you would love these, Amy!
I’ve always called them snowball cookies, my mom always made them, so I’m do excited I finally learned the name of them! Now I can still have traditional cookies I’ve been missing since my mom passed. So thanks for bringing my favorite cookies with the right name!
This warms my heart so much, Jeannie! Enjoy the cookies!
I made these today. They turned out good but I was expecting more of a buttery taste. I also didn’t know why I had to put the dough into the fridge fir and hour because once I took it out it was way to hard to work with. So I just let it sit out on the counter for a bit so it wasn’t so hard. I doubled the recipe so I could put half with nuts and other half with chocolate chips and mini m&ms. I will make it again . Thanks for sharing the recipe !
Hey, Ni– I’ve made these cookies dozens of times over the years and never find the dough too hard to work with after chilling, but it definitely needs to chill so the butter isn’t TOO soft to work with. Glad you liked them!