3 Ingredient Easy Snowball Cookies
With only 3 ingredients and one bowl, these snowball cookies will become your family’s favorite holiday cookie! Buttery, dense, and sugary, the dough is baked in just 15 minutes and then rolled in powdered sugar to look like a snow ball. There’s an option to add nuts if you like but they are delicious either way! With an easy way to remember the recipe, you will be making these on repeat all season long.
As a trained pastry chef, I have my favorite kinds of holiday cookies like these 5 star gingersnap cookies (I make them year round!), these cranberry orange shortbread cookies, and Italian Ricotta Cookies. These snowball cookies are so good, I am adding them to my list!
They are quite possibly the easiest Christmas cookies you can make because they are literally only 3 ingredients! All you need is powdered sugar, unsalted butter, and all purpose flour. In fact, I made this recipe even easier by making the measurements easy to remember too.
Here’s how I did it:
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 2 cups all purpose flour
You will need more powdered sugar for rolling the cookies but no need to measure that out as its just for rolling!
You can see that each ingredient is double the previous one- so if you can remember you need powdered sugar, butter, and flour in that order and know that you need 1/2 cup powdered sugar…Then the rest is doubled, theres no need to even look it up!
HOW EASY IS THAT! (doing a holiday happy dance right now)
A lot of snowball cookie recipes call for chopped pecans or other kinds of nuts too. There is an option to add them if you want but I like to leave them out for that real- melt in you melt feel, because thats exactly what these cookies do!
You may also know these cookies by their other names- Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies, Russian Tea Cakes, or Butterballs. This just goes to show you how deliciously popular these festive cookies are!
Grab your 3 ingredients, I know you know how much you need already, and let’s get baking!
Make sure your butter is softened first
Yes, we need to use softened butter. This is actually really important for these cookies because if the butter is too soft, then the cookies can come out greasy. If it’s not soft enough, it wont mix or combine well with the dry ingredients.
Softened butter may actually be colder and firmer than you think. You do not want your finger to slide all the way through it when you press on it- thats wayyyyyy too soft. Instead what you want to do is press it and if it makes a small indentation (like the picture below) its good to go. It will still feel a little bit cold.
If your butter is too cold, it wont cream well with the sugar and flour and the cookies wont come out as intended. If you forgot to leave your butter out then totally read how to soften butter quickly.
How to make the cookies
Now that you have softened butter, all you have to do is add the powdered sugar and butter to a hand or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low- medium speed to cream well for 1-2 minutes.
Stop and scrape down the bowl. With the mixer on low start adding in the flour 1/2 cup at a time. If the flour isnt mixing in well, increase the speed just slightly. Keep adding 1/2 cup or so flour when you notice the rest has been mixed in.
When all the flour is mixed in, a smooth and velvety soft dough should form. It doesn’t form in one ball as it is still a little tacky but thats ok! At this point you can add chopped nuts to mix in, or leave them out.
Chill the dough in the bowl for 30 minutes in the fridge.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Use a 1 tbsp cookie scoop or measuring spoon to scoop out the dough onto a parchment line cookie sheet. Leave 2 inches of space in between, about 12 to a sheet.
Bake for 15 minutes. Then cool for 8 minutes and roll in powdered sugar for the snowball effect.
Roll when warm but not too warm
You want to make sure to roll the cookies in powdered sugar when they are still a bit warm so that the sugar really sticks to the cookies. I found that a little under 10 minutes is the sweet spot. The cookies are not so hot that the sugar will melt, but not cool enough that it doesn’t stick.
If the sugar melts into the cookies because they were too warm, you can always roll them again in more sugar, or even just dust them right before serving.
Optional Nuts
Chop nuts like pecans, pistachios, or walnuts and add them to the batter before scooping if you like the taste and texture. You can even split the batter and do half with and half without, thats what I did here with pistachios.
Cookie Texture
The only way to describe these cookies is that they melt in your mouth! Especially if you dont use any nuts. The first time I took a bite out of these I thought they were going to be crumbly but instead I yelled a mumbled ohmergershhhh because they were so soft!
Yield
One batch makes 22-24 cookies. You can easily double the batch if you need more for a cookie swap or holiday party.
Make ahead and storage tips
10000% make these ahead because they will be good for at least 3 days. If the sugar looks weird after that long then just dust them with more before serving.
Keep them in an airtight container until you do! You can freeze them also in a ziptop bag for up to 2 months.
3 Ingredient Easy Snowball Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar, plus more for rolling
- 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 2 cups all purpose flour, 240g
- 1/2 cup pecans or pistachios, (optional) I leave them out!
Equipment
Instructions
- Make sure your butter is at room temp. See photos to make sure!
- Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 1 cup softened butter to the bowl of a hand or stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Cream on medium speed for 1-2 minutes until light and fluffy. Stop and scrape down the sides.
- With the mixer on low- slowly start adding in the flour about 1/2 cup at a time allowing the flour to incorporate into the dough until adding more.
- Mix on medium if the dough isnt coming together quick enough. Once all the flour is added and a smooth dough forms stop the mixer.
- If using nuts, add the nuts in here and mix by hand. You can also do half with, and half without nuts like I did in this post (use 1/4 cup chopped pistachios for half the batter) You'll need to separate the dough in half to do so.
- Chill the dough for 30 minutes in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 350° F and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- When the dough is chilled use a 1 tbsp cookie scoop or a kitchen tbsp to scoop out the dough. Line 4 cookies per row in 3 rows (12 cookies per sheet). Repeat with other cookie sheet.
- Bake for 15 minutes until lightly golden.
- In a shallow bowl add about 1/4 cup more powdered sugar. You can totally eyeball this because its just used for rolling.
- Cool the cookies for 8 minutes, then roll them in powdered sugar while still warm. Let them cool on the countertop for the sugar to set. You can re roll them in sugar but I find I dont need to!
- Store in an airtight container for 3 days or freeze for up to 2 months. Dust with powdered sugar before serving if making ahead.
LOVED it.
YAY! so excited to hear this!! thank you so much for the 5 star review!
Love the easy recipe but what temperature the oven be?
350 ° F 🙂
My family loved them so much and are asking me to make them every day and the fact they are so easy makes me love them even more 👍
YAY Shannon! Thank you so much for this 5 star review and for letting me know- this totally made my day! So glad your family loves them <3
What’s the oven temp for this recipe?
Its 350 🙂
Can these be made with gluten free flour?
Hi Debbie! I haven’t tested this particular recipe with gluten free flour yet so it might impact how the final cookies turn out.
My mom made these when I was much younger. We all LOVED them. So glad to find the recipe. Thank you so much
I hope these bring back all the nostalgia for you Charlotte and I hope they are as good as your mom made them!