Chestnut Snowball Cookies
These chestnut snowball cookies are the ultimate, no-fuss Christmas cookie and they literally melt in your mouth!
They’re quick and easy to make, using just a few simple ingredients, creating the perfect soft, buttery shortbread centres with ground chestnuts and finished with a generous coating of icing sugar on the outside.
Traditional recipes use almonds, pecans or walnuts, but I made these with chestnuts. You can use whichever nuts you have in the larder, and they will still taste amazing.
These cookies are very similar to my walnut crescent biscuits, which are also really good and easy to make.
I love to bake a few different biscuits/cookies for Christmas and arrange them on a nice platter for when people drop by. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these Christmas recipes: gingerbread, Viennese biscuits, cranberry lemon shortbread, cinnamon biscuits and Linzer Biscuits.
If you decide to give this recipe a try, let me know! Leave a comment below and rate it – it’s really helpful to me and other readers to know what you think! And don’t forget to take a picture and tag me @thegourmetlarder or hashtag it #thegourmetlarder on Instagram or Facebook. I love seeing what you’ve been baking! 🙂
RECIPE HIGHLIGHTS
- EASE: easy to make and if you have a food processor it will be incredibly easy.
- TASTE & TEXTURE: soft, butter shortbread centres, dusted in icing sugar.
- SERVING: they are delicious on their own or with a nice cup of tea or coffee.
- QUANTITY: 15 cookies
- TIME: 19 minutes, plus 1 hour chilling.
© THE GOURMET LARDER. All images and content are copyright protected. If you want to share this recipe, please do so using the share buttons provided. Please do not republish the recipe or its content in full instead, include a link to this post for the recipe. Further information can be found in my FAQ’s.
INGREDIENTS
For this recipe all you need are these ingredients:
- Butter – adds structure and flavour. I use salted butter for most of my baking as it intensifies the flavours, but feel free to use unsalted if you prefer. Make sure it’s at room temperature before using.
- Caster sugar or icing sugar – adds sweetness and structure.
- Egg – medium size weighing around 50 grams per egg out of the shell. The egg creates structure, make sure it is at room temperature before using it.
- Vanilla – I use Taylor & Colledge vanilla products, they add a delicious taste to your recipes and enhance the other ingredient flavours: pure vanilla extract, vanilla paste or vanilla pods.
- Plain or all-purpose flour – to build structure, as we do not use any other raising agents.
- Ground chestnuts – add flavour, moisture, texture and structure to the recipe. If you can’t find ground chestnuts buy ready to eat cooked chestnuts and grind them in a food processor.
- Baking powder – is a raising agent that helps to create a light biscuit.
- Icing sugar – these bite-sized treats wouldn’t look like cute little snowballs without a generous coating of icing sugar.
- Salt – I highly recommend adding a good pinch of fine salt to your biscuit dough. It might seem a bit weird, but it actually has the incredible ability to enhance sweetness, suppress bitterness, and elevate the flavour of all the ingredients, making your biscuits taste even better. It’s pretty crazy, the sodium in the salt sends signals to move glucose into your tongue’s sweet taste receptors, making the sweetness really pop. So, don’t be afraid to sprinkle a little salt – it’ll take your biscuits to the next level! I recommend Maldon Sea salt flakes or Cornish sea salt, but any good quality sea salt is fine.
WHAT VARIATIONS CAN I MAKE?
- Nuts – any type of nut that you have at home, almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts, or hazelnuts all work well.
- Citrus flavours – try adding orange or lemon zest for a citrus hit.
- Spices – experiment with spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, or cardamon.
- Extracts – if you use almonds, you can add almond extract to add emphasise the taste.
If you experiment, please leave a comment at the bottom of the post – it’s really helpful to me and other readers to know how you got on. I regularly update these posts and the feedback I receive helps to make the recipes even more useful and interesting.
NUTRITION
Serving: one cookie
Nutrition information can vary for a recipe based on factors such as precision of measurements, brands, ingredient freshness, or the source of nutrition data.
I strive to keep the information as accurate as possible but make no warranties regarding its accuracy.
I encourage you to make your own calculations based on the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
STORAGE AND FREEZING
Store the coated and cooled cookies in an airtight container for 5-7 days at room temperature.
Freezing the cookie dough – freeze the dough balls on a baking tray or plate, lined with baking paper. Once the cookies have frozen solid, approx. 30 minutes, transfer them to a freezer-safe, airtight container. They will last up to 3 months in the freezer. Bake them from frozen, adding an additional 1 minute to the instructions above.
Freezing the baked cookies – roll the baked cookies in icing sugar and leave them to cool completely, then place them on a lined baking tray and place them in the freezer. When they have frozen solid, approx. 30 minutes, store them in a freezer-safe, airtight container for up to 1 month. When ready to serve, allow the cookies to reach room temperature.
© THE GOURMET LARDER. All images and content are copyright protected. If you want to share this recipe, please do so using the share buttons provided. Please do not republish the recipe or its content in full instead, include a link to this post for the recipe. Further information can be found in my FAQ’s.
TOOLS YOU’LL NEED
Here are some kitchen equipment that I use and recommend for this recipe.
I like the sturdiness of this bowl and its 4-litre capacity means I can use it for mixing just about everything in the kitchen. It is also microwave, freezer, and dishwasher safe.
These different size mixing bowls are really useful depending on the amount of food you are preparing. They also have airtight lids that fit snugly to seal and keep food fresh, great for using as dry storage bowls with lids. The plastic lid of the largest bowl has a removable centre, where one of 3 graters can be used for grating cheese or vegetables.
I love using these baking mats. They stop everything from sticking to the baking tray and are really easy to clean.
This is a really good food processor, I have used Maggie mix before, I think they are one of the best processes on the market. The blades are very sharp and I use it for breaking down biscuits, nuts and getting very smooth creams or dips. It does a really good job and its very quiet not as noisy some other brands. I recommend it to anybody who enjoys baking and cooking. They are a little on the expensive side but you pay for what you get.
Digital kitchen scales: I highly recommend using metric measurements rather than cup measurements. If you have ever ended up with dry, dense, or crumbly baked goods, it might be because of inaccurate volume measurements, not all measuring cups are made equally. All my recipes are carefully developed so that you can easily recreate them in your own kitchen with success, using metric measurements. It is also a lot easier, and less messy and you will get far better, consistent results. 🙂
If you are interested in understanding conversions, here you will find the best conversion chart.
Please check out my Shop for a curated collection of some of my favourite baking equipment. The Gourmet Larder is an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
RECIPE TIPS
Use room temperature ingredients – this is really important; it makes it easier to work with and allows the ingredients to emulsify properly.
Avoid over baking the cookies – by keeping an eye on them towards the end of the baking time. All ovens are different and if these get over baked, they end up quite dry.
The dough should be a little sticky – avoid adding more flour to the recipe. Placing the dough in the fridge to rest for an hour will help it firm up and make be easier to roll.
Chestnut Snowball Cookies
INGREDIENTS LIST
- 125 g butter
- 100 g granulated sugar
- 1 medium egg (50g)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract or 1/4 tsp of vanilla paste
- 200 g plain flour (all-purpose)
- 100 g chestnuts (ready to eat)
- 1 tsp baking powder
Decoration
- 50 g icing sugar (US powdered sugar)
Preparation
- Food processor method: If you are using a food processor you can place all the ingredients into it and pulse until you have a crumbly texture and then finish by hand to form a dough ball. Then wrap in cling film and chill for an hour in the fridge. Follow on from step 6.
- Traditional method: In a medium mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
- Add the egg, the vanilla extract and rum essence, if using. Mix until well combined.
- If your chestnuts are not already ground, grind the chestnuts using a food processor. I like to use the mini processor of my Braun MultiQuick blender.
- Add the ground chestnuts, flour and baking powder to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly to form a dough ball. until smooth and creamy.
- Divide the dough into 14 pieces, rolling them into nice little balls. Place them on tray or plate that will fit in your fridge and chill them for 1 hour. the lined baking tray, allowing some space between them.
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°C / 160°C fan / 350°F / Gas 4. and line a baking tray with baking paper or a silicon mat.
- Remove the dough balls from the fridge, roll them in some icing sugar and place them on the lined baking tray.
- Baking: Place the tray in the middle of the oven for 14-16 minutes, or until the cookies are a pale golden-brown.
- Allow them to cool completely on a wire rack. Once completely cooled, I usually like to roll the cookies one more time in the icing sugar to ensure they are completely coated prior to serving. Enjoy!
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HAPPY BAKING!
These Chestnut Snowball Cookies look absolutely delightful! I love the idea of using chestnuts for a unique twist. Can’t wait to try this recipe during the holidays!