Snowball cookies are some of the easiest Christmas cookies you could make—you need just 5 ingredients and 1 mixing bowl. These snowballs are a classic on the Christmas cookie tray, and optional toasted pecans add the loveliest flavor and texture! Without any complicated steps or ingredients, you can be confident this easy snowball cookie recipe is foolproof.
I originally published this recipe in 2015 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, and a few more success tips.
These sugar-dusted crumbly shortbread cookies have been around for ages, and there’s just something so irresistible about them. They’re uniquely buttery and dense with a melt-in-your-mouth texture—it’s hard to stop at just 1!
One reader, Jaye, commented: “I decided to try out this cookie this year for the assorted cookie boxes I give to neighbors and friends. It was an absolute hit. In fact, my partner LOVED these cookies so much that she has declared them her new favorite cookie. Thanks for the recipe! ★★★★★“
What Are Snowball Cookies?
Snowball cookies are part butter, part flour, and part confectioners’ sugar. Sometimes they include chopped nuts, as well (try them with toasted pecans!). The confectioners’ sugar not only goes into the cookie dough, but also coats the outside of the cookie for that iconic snow-dusted exterior. There are no eggs or leavening agents in traditional snowball cookie recipes.
What do you call these cookies? They have many names, and are usually made with nuts or nut flour as an add-in. Names include Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding cookies, butterballs, snowdrops, and more. If formed into crescent shapes, they can be called Viennese crescents or Greek kourabiedes.
These easy cookies are a steadfast staple on my cookie platter—alongside other classics like gingerbread cookies, pinwheel cookies, peanut butter blossoms, and chocolate crinkle cookies.
Here’s Why You’ll Love Them
- Melt-in-your-mouth texture, similar to almond crescent cookies
- Buttery, dense, and sweet
- Incredibly easy to make
- 1-bowl recipe
- Just 5 ingredients
- Leave them plain, or add chopped nuts or colorful sprinkles
- Only 30 minutes of dough-chilling time
- A classic Christmas cookie everyone should try!
Snowball Cookie Ingredients (& Why You Need Them!)
With so few ingredients, each one has a very important job to do:
- Butter: Creamed butter forms the base of these shortbread-style cookies.
- Confectioners’ Sugar: A little in the dough, and then roll the baked cookies in the rest.
- Vanilla Extract: Adds flavor, especially if using homemade vanilla extract!
- Flour: This is the structure of the cookie.
- Salt: To balance out the sweet. Note that it can be optional if using salted butter, like we do in the video tutorial below.
- Optional: Finely chopped toasted pecans for delicious flavor. You know, just in case you have extra pecans leftover from your sweet potato casserole!
The ratio of butter to sugar to flour in the cookie dough varies between snowball cookie recipes, but I find 1 cup butter, 3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, and 2 and 1/4 cup all-purpose flour to be the sweet spot. Again, you’ll need extra confectioners’ sugar for the coating.
Expect a Crumbly Dough
The cookie dough comes together in just 1 bowl. It will be super thick, to the point where you don’t think it will come together. Turn your mixer up and watch the buttery goodness form before your eyes.
The dough will come together, I promise:
Chill the dough for just 30 minutes to help that creamed butter solidify, which helps guarantee your rounded cookies stay… well, rounded! Without chilling, your cookies could spread flat.
Use a Tablespoon measure to portion the chilled dough, and then roll into balls:
Unlike lemon crinkle cookies and chocolate crinkle cookies, we bake the cookies first and then we’ll roll in confectioners’ sugar… the best part of this iconic cookie!
How Do You Make the Confectioners’ Sugar Stick?
After the cookies bake, roll each one in confectioners’ sugar. The trick to the stick (ha!) is to roll them twice. Give the cookies their first coating when they are slightly warm. As the cookies cool, the confectioners’ sugar will melt into them. (It tastes amazing.) After the cookies have cooled, coat them in confectioners’ sugar one more time, and they’ll be as beautifully snowy as the final scene of a Hallmark Christmas movie.
3 Success Tips
- Use proper room temperature butter. Like when making Christmas sugar cookies or butter cookies, if your butter is too soft when you start, it won’t form a sturdy base for your cookie dough. The cookies will over-spread and taste greasy & dense.
- Make sure you use confectioners’ sugar (aka powdered sugar or icing sugar) in the cookie dough. Granulated sugar causes the cookies to over-spread and they’ll lose their “snowball” shape.
- Coat the cookies with confectioners’ sugar twice, once when warm and again when cool, because the first layer melts like a… well, a warm snowball! 😉
Try My Pecan Snowball Cookies
Want to make the best snowball cookies? Add some toasted pecans. Popping pecans in the oven for a brief 8–10 minutes elevates their flavor, and is a welcome step in my pecan sugar cookies. All you do is scatter them on a baking sheet and bake them until you smell that toasty goodness. I usually use a food processor to pulse the warm toasted nuts a few times. It’s that easy.
You can also use finely chopped (and toasted, if desired) walnuts, almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, or macadamia nuts.
Even More Variations
Instead of nuts, try adding sprinkles. Regular jimmie-type sprinkles are the best choice. And if you want some other variations, try my peppermint snowball cookies, cranberry spice cookies, pistachio cookies, and lemon coconut shortbread cookies! I even have a recipe for chai spice snowball cookies in my book, Sally’s Cookie Addiction.
Though the name varies, one thing’s certain: these snowball cookies always disappear quickly. There’s a reason they’re enjoyed in so many countries around the world!
More Classic Christmas Cookie Recipes
- Gingerbread Cookies
- Christmas Sugar Cookies
- Peanut Butter Blossoms
- Spritz Cookies
- Homemade Gingerbread House
- Peppermint Meltaways
- Snickerdoodles
This recipe is part of my annual cookie countdown called Sally’s Cookie Palooza. It’s the biggest, most delicious event of the year! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sally’s Cookie Palooza page.
Snowball Cookies Recipe
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 36 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Eurpoean
Description
This cookie dough is made from just 5 ingredients in 1 mixing bowl and only needs 30 minutes of chill time before baking. Without any complicated steps or ingredients, you can be confident this easy snowball cookie recipe is foolproof. Toasted pecans are optional, but add the loveliest flavor!
Ingredients
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 3/4 cup (90g) confectioners’ sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/8 teaspoon salt (see note)
- optional: 3/4 cup (100g) finely chopped and toasted pecans*
Coating
- 1 and 1/4 cups (150g) confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- In a large bowl using a handheld mixer or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute on medium speed until completely smooth and creamy. Add 3/4 cup (90g) confectioners’ sugar and beat on medium high speed until combined and creamy. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Next, beat in the vanilla extract on medium-high speed until combined. Switch to low speed and slowly add the flour and salt. The dough will look dry and you may not think the flour will fully combine. Once all of the flour is added, turn the mixer up to high speed. The dough will come together. Finally, beat in the chopped pecans, if using.
- Cover the cookie dough tightly and chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes and up to 3 days. (If chilling for 3+ hours, make sure you let the cookie dough sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before rolling into balls. The cookie dough will be very stiff after being in the refrigerator for that long.)
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside. Pour the confectioners’ sugar needed for the coating into a shallow bowl.
- Scoop or roll 1 Tablespoon (20g) of cookie dough per cookie. Roll into a ball and place on the baking sheets, at least 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies until golden brown on the bottom edges and just barely browned on top, about 15 minutes.
- Coating: Allow the cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then very gently roll them in the confectioners’ sugar to coat completely. Place the cookies on wire racks to cool completely. The confectioners’ sugar will melt a bit and get sticky; that’s ok. Once the cookies have completely cooled, roll in confectioners’ sugar again. This is when the sugar will really stick.
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Baked cookies freeze well up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. See this post on how to freeze cookie dough for more information and a video tutorial.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Glass Mixing Bowl | Cooling Rack
- Salt: The video uses salted butter, so I skip the salt. Feel free to use salted butter and skip the added salt in the recipe.
- To Toast the Pecans: Spread chopped pecans on a lined baking sheet. Bake for 8–10 minutes at 300°F (150°C). Let them slightly cool. Then, give them a very fine chop with a sharp knife or pulse a few times in a food processor. You want small pieces of nuts. Feel free to skip the toasting step and just use finely chopped pecans.
- Sprinkles or Other Nuts: You can also use finely chopped (and toasted, if desired) walnuts, almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, or macadamia nuts. Toast according to the same directions as pecans in Note above. Instead of nuts, you can beat in 1/2 cup sprinkles.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Mine came out flat but still taste great
We’ve been making these cookies for years! We like ours with a kiss or a hug in the middle.
Would it be possible to substitute almond flour or gluten free flour for the ap flour in this recipe?
Hi Holly, we don’t recommend almond flour in place of AP flour, as it has very different baking properties and is not a 1:1 swap. We haven’t tested it, but you might have success experimenting with a gluten-free all-purpose flour like Bob’s Red Mill or Cup4Cup. If you give anything a try, we’d love to know how it goes for you!
Very delicious, great shortbread texture, beautiful, and amazingly easy! Perfect for large crowds as well.
I am going to make the snowball cookies.The recipe sounds perfect.
Thanks
I made this recipe for the first time instead of my Russian Teacake recipe. Everything was almost exact except a little less powdered sugar in mine and only 1 tsp. Vanilla. I normally love vanilla but I did not care for the flavor of these cookies. I think the extra vanilla changed it. Or maybe the fact I used pecans instead of my walnuts.
These look SO good, I am wondering if there is a dough similar to this that is chocolate so that you could make chocolate snowballs?
Hi Carmen, we haven’t tested a chocolate version of these snowballs cookies, but they are great with mini chocolate chips in them!
All your recipes are delicious & the directions are easy to follow. Everything I have are comes out flawless !!
Thank you so much for making our recipes, Randa!
I want to make this using walnuts and walnut extract. Do you think it will turn out okay?
Hello! My questions is; when freezing the snowball cookies, do I roll them in powder sugar before or after freezing? Thank you!
We recommend coating them before freezing, Sarah.
Sally, can I add a glace cherry in the middle, along with 1 tsp almond extract
Definitely! The moisture from the cherry might discolor the confectioners’ sugar, though. We do something similar with our butter cookies.
Great recipe! You must use the pecans!! I have recently tried this recipe by pressing the dough into a 8×8 pan and bake it like a bar. It takes about 20-22 mins. Then I dust the top with powder sugar when it comes out of the oven and slice into squares! A little bit easier to make and eat! Also a little splash of almond extract throws it over the top!
I love Snowballs or Butterballs as my Aunt calls them. My aunt gave me her grandmother’s recipe a few years ago, and I made them (with unsalted butter as your recipe says) and they did not taste nearly as good as my Aunts! All we can come up with is that Grandmother would have used salted butter. So, I did that and they were much closer. Water, humitiy, butter quality, flour all seems to make a difference. But again, easy and love these! Thank you!
Can I substitute vegan butter for regular butter in this recipe? Thanks
Hi Lee, we haven’t tested vegan butter here. Let us know if you do!
I froze the dough for 2 days, then took them out, left them at room temperature for 5 mins, into the oven for at the same temperature and amount of time in the recipe. They spread a bit more than I would prefer (and would with real butter I suspect) but were still tasty!
Hello Sally! Would it be possible to stuff these cookies with half a tsp of Nutella? Will I be able to make any adjustments to the amount of confectioners’ sugar used in the recipe, just to balance out the sweetness?
Hi Atri, we haven’t tested this, but think it could work–with the caveat that it might be tricky to do! Sally thinks that freezing the half-teaspoon-size dollops of Nutella on a sheet of parchment paper would make it easier to mold this crumbly dough around them, but again, we haven’t tried it ourselves. We do have a Nutella-stuffed crinkle cookie recipe you could look at to see how we stuff them, but that dough is a different consistency. If you try it, please report back and let us know how they turn out!
Would it be possible to substitute almond flour for the all purpose flour, and if so, would other ingredients need to be adjusted?
Hi Paula, we don’t recommend almond flour in place of AP flour, as it has very different baking properties and is not a 1:1 swap. We haven’t tested it, but you might have success experimenting with a gluten-free all-purpose flour like Bob’s Red Mill or Cup4Cup. If you give anything a try, we’d love to know how it goes for you!
Quantity of chopped pecans??
Hi Lucy, You can add 3/4 cup (100g) finely chopped and toasted pecans
Just made these lovely cookies! We have some nut allergies in the family so I omitted them. I did add 1/2 cup tapioca starch resulting in a delicate but tender cookies. I also added 3 Tbsp warm water. I used Therm-flo (for canning and freezing) as I was fresh out of standard cornstarch. I plan to serve mounded with a fresh but scant dusting of powdered sugar just prior to serving on friday. I can’t wait for my friends to try them!! These are easy and so festive! Thanks so much to your team for giving us great recipes ALL year long!!
hello! i’m trying to convert sbux cranberry bliss bars into a snow ball cookie for my coworkers 🙂 would it be possible to use brown sugar, or half brown half white sugar? or would that affect moisture too much? TYIA!
Hi Dean! We don’t recommend using brown sugar here. These snowball cookies need the powdered sugar. You could work from this cranberry spice cookies recipe instead – they could be coated in powdered sugar instead. Let us know what you try!
1.Can I leave out the pecans since some have nut allergy
2.Also can I roll them in cinnamon sugar mixture instead of powder sugar
Hi Linda, yes, you can leave out the pecans. And yes, you can roll them in cinnamon-sugar instead, but they will obviously have a different look that’s not quite as snowy!
Hi Sally, Can I add lemon juice and/or zest to this recipe for lemon snowballs?
Hi Patti, Lemon snowballs are delicious. We recommend adding 1 teaspoon of lemon extract and some lemon zest to the cookie dough.
I put Hershey’s Kisses in the center. My family loves them!
.mini or regulsr sized chocolate chips?
Great recipe! I followed the recipe and it is simple. Made about 36 cookies in total.
A lovely little cookie, but I will double the salt next time. Maybe triple.
Your hardbound cookie cookbook Sally’s Cookie Addiction says 2 1/ 4 cup flour =270 grams. The above recipe says 2 1/4 cup 281. I made the recipe in the cookbook by weighing the flour. I thoughr it didn’t look like enough flour. But followed the recipe. The dough would not come together. I calibrated my scale against a correct 5 gm weight. My scake is correct. Please correct your weights.
Hi Gale, the weights were fixed in later prints. Sorry about that editing error. You’ll want closer to 281g. Would the dough not come together because it was too dry? In that case, I wonder if the butter was not soft enough.
Loving this recipe! I chose finely chopped almonds for my cookies.
Luv these cookies
Easy and sooooyummy
dough did not come together was all powdery
These are melt in your mouth good!
These cookies are the bomb. They are so good. It takes a while to make them but well worth it. My daughter was a little flowery so I had a little bit of almond milk to it and that worked out fine.