My Gluten-Free Pecan Snowball Cookies are the best, most tender, crumbly, melt-in-the-mouth cookie that you will ever eat. Not only are they incredibly easy to make, but they also are difficult to resist. Serve them at morning tea, after dinner with a cup of coffee or as a great sweet treat at any time.
Preheat your oven to 150 Degrees C (300 F).Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.
Add the pecans to a food processor and grind to a coarse powder.
Add the butter, salt, sugar and vanilla extract and pulse a few times to briefly combine.
Add the flour to the food processor.Process the ingredients until they just come together. Do not overwork the dough.
Turn the dough onto some cling wrap.
Bring the dough together and form a disc. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes or until the dough is firm enough to roll into small balls.
Take about 1 ½ teaspoons of mixture and roll into balls, about 2 ½ cm (1 inch) diameter. Place the balls on the prepared baking tray, leaving a gap between each one.
Bake about 25-30 minutes until light golden on the edges.Remove from the oven and leave the biscuits to cool slightly on the tray for about 3 minutes. Keep the oven on.
Sift the icing/powdered sugar onto a plate. Roll the cookies in the sugar then gently place them on the baking tray.
Return the tray to the oven for 2-3 minutes to set the icing/powdered sugar.Cool the cookies for 5 minutes before carefully removing them to a rack to cool completely. (They are fragile at this stage.)
Store in an airtight container.To serve, dust with a little extra icing/powdered sugar.
Notes
This is the prepared weight of the shelled pecans.
The butter should be soft enough to work with, but still holding its shape. If it is a hot day, use the softened butter as soon as possible.
In Australia, the tablespoon is 20 ml or 4 teaspoons. In many other countries, the tablespoon is 15 ml or 3 teaspoons. Please adjust the measurement if necessary.
Use vanilla naturally extracted from vanilla beans, not synthetically flavoured essence.
Our gluten-free flour blends contain either xanthan or guar gum to stabilise and provide structure to our recipes. If your flour blend already contains either of these gums, there is no need to add more. If you do not require the recipe to be gluten-free, you can use regular flour.
Pure icing/powdered sugar is naturally gluten-free. If you use an icing mixture ensure that it is gluten-free.
Please note, the nutritional information is based on one cookie. The nutritional information is an estimate only.