December 6, 2015

Snowball Melting Moments Cookies

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By Published: 2015-12-06
Yeah, it's that time of the year!  The countdown to Christmas is here!  I love the Xmas season despite all the rampant commercialization of it these days.  There's always been something really wonderful, warm and fuzzy to me about it all.  And now that we've got a little girl it's even more fun to celebrate Christmas, there are gifts to hide, decorations to put up, christmas carols to sing!  

We kicked off the season this year by making these yummiliciously fun Snowball Melting Moments Cookies; a cookie easy enough for my little girl to make, mostly, by herself and good looking enough to give away as a gift.  I mean who wouldn't want to make and eat cookies that look, taste (in my imagination, at least), and melt deliciously in the mouth just like real snowballs!

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The secret to these cookies, the reason they literally melt in your mouth, is the addition of cornstarch, or in our case, potato starch.  (We use potato starch instead of cornstarch; it starches more smoothly.)  The cookies hold together just fine but when you put it in your mouth it will just crumble away in awesome sugary cookie goodness.  

I like also that it is not a very sweet cookie, having only a small amount of sugar in the actual batter, leaving the sweetness mostly to the powdered sugar that coats the "snowballs".  The balance is just perfect.

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I realized recently that butter is a really flexible thing.  What I mean is that butter will keep in a lot longer and more flexible way than say, milk.  Did you know that, long ago, folks used to keep butter out on their counters, in a pretty little covered butter dish.  That way one could have butter at the perfect softness to spread whenever it was needed.  Instead of doing as I do which is struggling dreadfully to spread hard butter on toast, ending up with a tattered and sad looking piece of breakfast bread.  

But then probably some of you (many of you?) are laughing at me now, thinking, how did you not know that?  

Anyhow, my point here is that it is fine to leave the butter out overnight on your kitchen counter so that it is perfectly soft and ready to use in the morning for your Snowball Melting Moment cookies.

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Really, this Snowball Melting Moments Cookie is so easy to make that it is a great cookie recipe to let small children get their hands dirty with.  All children love to mess around in the kitchen, my little girl included and this time I let her do pretty much all of it by herself.  Well, when she wasn't wandering off to watch cartoons, that is.  Children sure can watch a lot of cartoons!

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One part my little girl was sure to not miss out on was the 'snowing the cookies' part.  Oh what fun it is to snow the cookie balls, heh!  She very patiently (for her) snowed all the cookies until our bake tray looked like a winter wonderland!  

I have to say, these Snowball Melting Moments were gobbled gone by the next day, nothing left but an empty cookie tin, they were so popular.  So I'm making some more today, why not, easy peasy and it's all in the Christmas spirit!

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Snowball Melting Moments Cookies
(makes 32 cookies, adapted from recipe here)  
Prep time: 5 mins  Chill time: 1 hour  Cook time: 13 mins

Ingredients:


Directions:

Sift the flour, cornstarch and salt in one bowl.  Use hand mixer to beat softened butter and sugar together until smooth and fluffy.  Add in vanilla and mix in.  Add in the flour mixture and stir until just mixed.  Cover and chill dough for one hour.

Preheat oven to 350F (170C).

Line baking sheet with parchment paper, make as many approx 1" balls as you can and place onto baking sheet at 1" intervals.  Bake 13 mins or until just the tiniest bit brown at the bottom edges.

Let cool for 5 mins on the tray, then shift powdered sugar over until cookies are covered in drifts of sweet snow.  Store at room temp between sheets of wax paper in an air tight container for up to two weeks.

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