Butter Balls

By CheeseDiva

Ingredients

• 1 cup finely ground walnuts
• 2 1⁄4 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
• 1 ⁄2 tsp. salt
• 1 ⁄2 lb. unsalted butter, softened
• 1 ⁄2 cup confectioners' sugar, plus 2 cups
• for dredging
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Details

Servings 4
Adapted from saveur.com

Preparation

Step 1

MAKES 4 DOZEN

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Combine walnuts, flour, and salt in a medium bowl. Mix well and set aside. Beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed. Gradually add 1⁄4 cup sugar and beat until mixture is fluffy. Beat in vanilla, then reduce speed and add flour mixture, mixing until just combined.

2. Using your hands, shape dough, 1 tbsp. at a time, into small balls, then place about 1" apart on buttered nonstick baking sheets. Bake until cookies are slightly golden, about 10 minutes. Remove cookies from oven and allow to cool for 5–10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, place remaining 1–2 cups sugar on a large plate. Roll cookies, while still warm, in sugar, then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Once cookies are completely cool, roll them again in sugar.

Taste wonderful. I too think there is an error in the recipe - I added 1 1/2 c of the powdered sugar to the cookies and they were perfect. One cup of powdered sugar to do the rolling in was more than plenty. I made these at 8000ft elevation and increased the heat in the oven to 425 - but had no oven thermometer.....

These cookies taste just like my grandmother used to make, just not as sweet. I may try what some of the reviewers said and increase the amount of sugar for the dough.

i think there is a typo in the directions. it says 1/2 cup powdered sugar in the ingredients, but in the directions it only has you add 1/4 cup. i found that the cookies were yummy, but could have used the 1/2 cup of 10x.