Merry Christmas
These delicate and crumbly cookies are light and buttery. They are similar to Mexican Wedding Cakes, but these have their roots in Minnesota. When I was a child, Mom made these every Christmas. I thought they looked like little snowballs and tasted like heaven. I still like to add them to my Christmas cookie list because they bring back memories of happy Christmases past. Their unique shape is a beautiful addition to any plate of holiday cookies.
“All I want for Christmas is cookies... lots of cookies.” Kasha
Sandies remind me of polvorones, a super soft and crumbly Spanish Christmas cookie, which I grew to love when I was living in Madrid. When I found out that polvorones contained pork lard, I was glad I’d tried them before I knew that! Definitely not good for my diet but I could understand what made the texture of these little cookies so unique. No lard in Sandies, though...just five simple ingredients: butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, flour and pecans.
Cookie specifics
Sandies. These delicate and crumbly cookies are light and buttery. When you bite into one, it almost melts in your mouth. There’s not a lot of sugar in the cookie itself, but the confectioners’ sugar coating more than makes up for it.
Shapes
Sandies are intended to be “round-ish.” I use a small (about 4-teaspoons) cookie scoop to portion them out. The dough is rather soft so using the scoop makes it easy to get them onto the baking sheets. A tablespoon would also work, though.
Sizes
The finished cookie is about 1¾ inches in diameter. I’ve also made them as small as 1 inch (to get more cookies out of the recipe). But to do this you’ll have to hand roll the soft dough, which can be a bit messy.
Sandies
Prep Time: 15 minutes • Cook Time: 20-30 minutes
Servings: 36 1½-inch cookies
Ingredients
Cookie Dough
1 cup (8oz) salted butter (I recommend Kerry Gold), room temperature
¼ cup (29g) sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon (15mL) water
2 cups (284g) all-purpose flour
1 cup (125g) pecans, toasted (see tips) and finely chopped
Finishing
About ½ cup (60g) confectioners’ sugar for coating
Directions
- Preheat oven to 300°F. Arrange the oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and confectioners’ sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Add vanilla and water and mix to combine, about 30 seconds.
- Add flour gradually and mix until incorporated.
- Stir in the chopped pecans. The dough will be very soft!
- Using a small cookie scoop (or a tablespoon), place 1½ inch balls of dough onto prepared baking sheets. They will not spread so I’m able to get 15 cookies on a 12x18-inch baking sheet.
- Bake two sheets at a time in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes until lightly browned, rotating the sheets halfway through baking. (Smaller cookies will take less time.) To see if they’re done, carefully lift one of the cookies and check that the bottom is lightly browned. Be sure not to burn yourself, as the cookies are hot.
- Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for at least 5 minutes, then while still warm, gently roll each one in confectioners’ sugar and set on cooling rack to cool completely. The warm cookies are a bit fragile, so handle them lightly. I place the cookie into a bowl of confectioners’ sugar and use a spoon to coat it with the sugar. Rolling the warm cookies in confectioners’ sugar is what creates the sweet sugary-buttery layer that surrounds the finished cookie.
- Cool cookies completely. Dust with additional confectioners’ sugar if they don’t look “snowy” after they’re cool.
- Store completely cooled cookies in an airtight container.
Tips — How to toast pecans in the microwave
I buy shelled pecans in bulk and store them in the freezer so that I always have them on hand. I toast them early on baking day so that I have them ready when I’m putting the dough together. Here’s how I toast them:
Spread 1 cup (125g) of whole frozen pecans on a microwave-safe plate and microwave on high for 1 minute; stir, then microwave for 1 minute more; stir, and microwave for 30 seconds more. Remove the pecans from the microwave and give them one final stir. Let the nuts cool completely before chopping them and adding them to the cookie dough.
Cookies
Sandies. butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, flour and pecans
Plate, Box or Bag?
Christmas Plate (of course!). I add a few of these to my plate of Christmas cookies every year. The “snowballs” add a wonderful visual contrast to all the other sweets.
Box. If I’m going to give these delicate cookies as gifts, I like to put 4 of them in a small candy box, lined with wax paper and red tissue paper. Then I wrap it up in colorful paper and put a bow on it. Merry Christmas!
Mailing. This year I’m going to mail some of these cookies to a friend so I’ll let you know how it goes. They're so fragile that she may just get a box of crumbs...delicious crumbs, but still crumbs. (P.S. I always send my cookies Priority Mail through the U.S. Post Office. ANd I use the boxes provided by the Post Office with lots of bubble wrap. In almost all cases, the cookies arrive undamaged. We’ll see what happens to these.)
What I’ve learned...
These cookies were made with the best ingredients I could find. Since Sandies have very few ingredients, the butter is an essential player and I use Kerry Gold because it really does make a huge difference. I’ve experimented with less expensive ingredients, but have come to the conclusion that flavor is best when I use the best. Why spend all this time baking and decorating if taste and texture are just so-so? Baking cookies takes time, but it’s an enjoyable process for me and I know that those who receive them appreciate that. Life is just better when you can share something you love with someone you love. Don’t you agree?
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