On the 8th day of Christmas: snowball cookies!

We have snow!  And ice, just for fun (not).  Just a few inches, but enough to make the roads slippery and to feel a little more like Christmas as I made snowball cookies.  I got this recipe years ago from a Swedish friend - she called them Russian Tea cookies, but when I googled them, I found they are also known as Swedish Tea cookies, as well as snowballs.  Delicious and buttery, and fun to make.  When I first made them, I made them a little too big - now I try to make them somewhere between a small marble and the bigger ones.

Swedish Tea cookies:

I always toast the walnuts (or you can use pecans as well) in a toaster oven for a few minutes to bring out the flavor of the walnuts.  If you do that first thing, they will be cooled in ten minutes and ready to be chopped in the food processor without clumping.

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 c. confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar)
1 t. vanilla
2 1/4 cups King Arthur flour
1/4 t. kosher salt
3/4 cup walnuts, toasted and finely chopped
1/4 t. nutmeg
More powdered sugar for rolling and dusting the cookies.

Preheat oven to 375F.
Line two baking sheets with clean foil and set aside.

Cream the butter well, then add the confectioner's sugar, the vanilla, salt, and nutmeg.  Add the flour and mix well, then add the cooled, chopped walnuts.  Mix until somewhat lumpy .  Remove beater and squeeze the dough into a ball.

Pinch off small pieces of dough and roll into marble size pieces, place on baking sheet as you work, about 2 inches apart - they don't spread much. 

Place the first filled baking sheet on the upper third shelf of the oven, and bake for 14 minutes.  Remove to a cooling rack and place the second batch in the oven, again, for 14 minutes.  Remove cookies from baking sheet and roll in a cup or so of confectioner's sugar, using a spoon to turn them.  Set on platters as they are sugared.

Just before serving, sprinkle the cookies with a little snowfall of confectioner's sugar ( about 1/2 cup) placed in a very fine strainer and shaken over the platter.  You can also do this to tidy up a platter if too many little fingers have been poking them.