Stuffed Snowballs

Stuffed Snowballs - made dough April 11, 2015 from Crazy for Crust

I had held back some of the cookie butter cups from the brownies I’d made earlier so that I could use some of them for these Stuffed Snowballs. The original stuffing for these was meant to be peanut butter cups but I don’t tend to color within the lines when I can substitute peanut butter with cookie butter. Truthfully, the main reason I wanted to try this recipe is so I could use the cookie butter cups in them. I like snowballs, also known as Mexican Wedding Cakes, and it was intriguing to experiment with making them better because I think they’re already pretty good as is.

This type of cookie dough is perfect for “stuffing” because it’s easy to work with, isn’t too dry or too sticky. Take a small scoop, flatten it in the palm of your hand, place the cookie butter cup (or peanut butter cup) in the center and bring up the dough around it to encase it. Don’t worry about having too little dough to cover it all since you can simply place a small amount of dough over the remaining part of the candy cup that’s still exposed and seal the dough around it to encase it fully. If you want perfectly round-looking cookies, roll the dough ball round and chill before baking.

Since the snowball is more of a butter cookie rather than a chocolate one, this worked out better for me than putting them in brownies. The cookie butter cup was still enrobed in the dark chocolate but the chocolate-cookie butter combo was muted inside the snowball so I didn’t have issues with the chocolate fighting with the cookie butter for flavor dominance.

The trick to that melt-in-your-mouth aspect of a snowball is to roll the still-warm cookies in confectioners’ sugar a few minutes after you take them out of the oven. I would caution against rolling them right after you take them out of the oven as they’ll be too hot and too fragile to coat so they’ll be at high risk for crumbling rather than rolling. But don’t wait for too long either or else the sugar won’t adhere and “melt” into the cookie as well. I like to give it at least 3-5 minutes for the cookies to firm up a little, roll them quickly into confectioners’ sugar, set them back on the cookie sheet and then re-roll them once they’re completely cooled.

If you eat this just after the cookie has cooled, the inside cookie butter cup is still soft and melt-y. If you wait a few hours instead, the candy cup will firm up. Either way, you can’t go wrong. 

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup toasted pecans, finely chopped
24 cookie butter cups (available at Trader Joe's)
powdered sugar for rolling

1. Mix butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add flour and salt and mix until the dough comes together. Stir in nuts.
2. Scoop 1 tablespoon of dough and flatten with your hands. Place 1 cookie butter cup in the center and place another tablespoon of dough over it. Seal the edges together, completely covering the cookie butter cup and roll into a sealed ball. Repeat with remaining dough and cookie butter cups.
3. Chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper and space cookie dough balls evenly on cookie sheets.
5. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes or until bottoms are just slightly brown. Remove from oven and cool for just a minute. Fill a small bowl with additional powdered sugar and roll each cookie in the sugar until coated. Let cool completely then re-roll in powdered sugar for a thicker coating.