These melt in your mouth Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookies are a fun twist on a Christmas time classic! These allergy-friendly, nut-free cookies are studded with mini chocolate chips and are so easy to make too!
Snowball cookies are a wintertime classic and while I am a big fan of the classic version, this chocolate chip version is by far my favourite!
I mean, chocolate. Need I say more?
If you haven’t tried Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookies, prepare to have your taste buds dance in pure joy! These cookies have everything you are looking for in a cookie- sweet, chocolatey goodness all rolled up into a tender, melt-in-your-mouth bite.
I especially love these cookies because they are nut-free! Since I have a sensitivity to most nuts and try to limit my intake, I love that I can eat these without worrying about it. This snowball cookie recipe is definitely one to keep on hand when you are looking for an allergy-friendly cookie to bake around the holidays.
Snowball cookies are popular around the world and often go by a number of names including Russian Tea Cakes, Mexican Wedding Cookies and Kourabiedes (Greek Butter Cookies). My Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookie recipe is actually based on my mom’s recipe for Kourabiedes.
What ingredients are in a chocolate chip snowball cookie?
- Butter: softened. Adds a wonderful buttery flavour.
- Vegetable shortening (Crisco): helps produce a tender, softer cookie
- Flour, eggs, vanilla extract: standard cookie ingredients
- Brandy (optional): adds flavour
- Icing sugar (aka confectioners sugar or powdered sugar): produces a lighter crumb
- Baking powder and baking soda: leaveners
- Mini chocolate chips: can’t make a chocolate chip cookie without them!
How do you make snowball cookies?
This recipe for Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookies requires only a handful of simple steps:
- Cream the butter and vegetable shortening together: this provides a nice, fluffy base for these tender cookies.
- Add the wet ingredients: eggs, vanilla, and brandy (if using) get blended in.
- Mix in the dry ingredients: flour, icing sugar, baking powder and baking soda.
- Stir in the chocolate chips
- Form the cookie balls: use a cookie scoop to get uniform sizes and roll out the cookie balls, pressing down just a bit
- Bake the cookies: these cookies require about 25 minutes to cook until they are only slightly golden brown.
- Powder them: after cooling the cookies, sift powdered sugar over top
Storing Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookies
These cookies can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container. You can also freeze snowball cookies and thaw them when you are ready to enjoy them.
I hope you enjoy this cookie as much as I do!
-Cathy
You may also like:
Recipe for Kourabiedes (Greek Butter Cookies)
Chocolate Kiss Cookies
Chocolate Dipped Toffee Shortbread Cookies
If you try and enjoy this recipe, I would love to hear about it! Leave a rating and/or comment below to let me know what you think!
Chocolate Chip Snowball Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened
- 1 cup vegetable shortening Crisco
- 1 large egg
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 tablespoons brandy
- 4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup icing sugar aka confectioners sugar or powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
- additional icing sugar for powdering
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the butter and vegetable shortening until light and fluffy.
- Add the egg, egg yolks, vanilla extract, and liquor and blend until incorporated.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, icing sugar, baking powder and baking soda. With the stand mixer running on low, slowly add the flour mixture until fully incorporated. Add the mini chocolate chips and mix in.
- Using a 1 1/2 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop out batter and roll them into a ball. Arrange the cookie balls onto a baking sheet leaving enough space for them to expand as they bake. Press down very lightly to flatten them out just a little.
- Bake until they begin to brown underneath and get a very light golden colour, about 25-28 minutes.
- Allow the cookies to cool on the rack for 5-10 minutes. Gently place cookies in a dish sprinkled with icing sugar and sift with more icing sugar until they are well covered.
Note: Metric ingredient measurements are provided as a courtesy using a third-party calculator and are rounded to the nearest unit. The recipes provided on this site have not been tested with metric measurements and their accuracy cannot be verified.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided is based on third-party calculations and is an estimate only. Accurate nutritional facts will vary based on the particular brands used, portion sizes, measurement accuracy and more.
