[C]ookies for the sake of cookies, for the sake of December, for the sake of Christmas, and just so we can stand at the kitchen counter and count how many of these warm, nutty, powdered sugar bites we can shove into our mouths.
The answer is 3.5. That’s how many cookies fit in a mouth. Be careful.
I’m thinking about upcoming holiday parties, possible cookie swap situations, and general winter cookie desires. These buttery walnut bites totally fit the bill. Tender, crumbly, two-bites, powdered sugar clouds.
These cookies are deliciously buttery and crumbly.
Yes, of course these cookies have butter in them, but their tender crumble is due, in great part, to the fact that these cookies have more finely chopped walnuts than flour. The lovely fat in the nuts lends to the rich and buttery flavor of these cookies. Essential fats. Totally the way to go.
The dry ingredients come together in a large bowl. Flour, sugar, and a good pinch of salt.
Finally chopped walnuts too. All together in the bowl.
I wanted to add a bit of baking powder. I forgot, but it’s not too late.
Softened butter is added to the nutty dry ingredients. It’s soft so just toss it in. Start to mix the ingredients together with a spoon. Eventually you may graduate to using your hands to mix the dough together.
This buttery dough isn’t a traditional cookie dough. It will be much more crumbly than something like a Chocolate Chip Cookie dough. Not to worry.
To bring this dough from crumbles to cookies, we press a heaping tablespoon of dough together. Gently but with intention. Walnut sized balls of dough. They won’t rise or puff much in the oven so cozy them up on the baking pan.
It will all work out in the oven.
Perfectly imperfect. No need for a mixer or a cookie scoop for these little balls… just a spoon and your hands.
These babies bake for about 25 minutes. Seems like a long time for tender little cookies, but they bake at a low temperature and need a bit of time meld and cook through.
As the cookies come out of the oven they’re completely doused in powdered sugar. Just as soon as they’re cool enough to handle. Actually… even before they’re cool enough to handle. Pop them in the sugar.
The heat will ensure that the powdered sugar adheres to the cookies, coats extra thick, and is utterly delicious.
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Butter Walnut Cookies
- Prep Time: 0 hours
- Cook Time: 0 hours
- Total Time: 0 hours
- Yield: about 24 cookies 1x
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- big pinch of salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Place powdered sugar in a medium bowl and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, stir together flour, cornstarch, salt, baking powder, brown sugar, and walnuts.
- Stir in the vanilla extract. This might feel weird but just throw it in and stir.
- Add the butter and use a spoon to work the butter into the dry ingredients. Use your hands to mix the dough until it’s a coarse meal with lots of nut bits.
- Press heaping tablespoons of dough into walnut-sized balls and place an inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 25 to 27 minutes. The cookies won’t brown very much but will appear to be dry on the outside and will feel fairly firm to the touch.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before placing in powdered sugar bowl to coat. Coat generously in powdered sugar.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to four days.
66 Responses
Hello!! I really love these cookies and have made them multiple times. Just want to try making them gluten free and with vegan butter? what do you suggest I should do?
Hello! Feel free to use plant based butter instead of butter and any gluten-free flour substitute. Joy likes Cup4Cup as a substitute a lot! Hope this helps!
Hi from Pennsylvania… making these tonight while watching Christmas specials.
I just stumbled across your blog! Wow its beautiful. Love the photography. These cookies look delicious! I will be heading into the kitchen to make these right now! :)
My new go-to cookie! I am baking challenged and these are fool-proof and takes just minutes to prepare. Two alterations: I toasted the walnuts in an iron skillet first and also added 1 T of maple syrup and 1 less T of brown sugar to the recipe. So utterly, amazingly, sinfully good! Thank you for making me look like a pro with this simple, fast, delicious cookie!
Sooo good! :)
https://justsem.wordpress.com/
I made these and they didn’t work at all… what was I doing wrong? They didn’t stick together and immediately crumbled after being taken out of the oven… I couldn’t even keep them together to roll them in the sugar :(
I’ve made these at least three times now. The first few times with salted butter and the last time with unsalted. I have to say, I MUCH prefer the salted butter version; it is so much tastier. Can someone please explain to me the virtues of baking with unsalted butter? This recipe is going in my permanent file (with salted butter, of course)…we just LOVE these cookies and they really are so easy to make. Thanks, Joy! Merry Christmas!!
OMG! delicious! thanks for the super easy recipe.
I love the way these look! I really want to try making these.
Please, how did you chop the nuts, by hand, food processor? Thanks
That’s great recipe and the cookies looks delicious!
I tried making these, and the dough was too crumbly to form balls. It refused to stay together. Not sure what to do.
Love the idea of walnuts instead of pecans, these look wonderfully soft and flavorful!
YUM! These are my favorite cookies! We used to make them every year for Christmas, except that my family calls them Greek Wedding Cookies. You can called them “A pile of sticks” for all I care, I’m still eating the whole plateful by myself, shamelessly.
xoxo!
My mom has made a very similar cookie (her’s may have less brown sugar?) for as long as I can remember, and it’s likely she got the recipe from an aunt or grandmother. They’re awesome & I’m sure these are too!
Ah so good!!
I made these today…came out perfect. I also made the fudge from the other day…it’s not hardening…it’s delicious but gooey. This is my first fudge/ candy thermometer experience…as far as I can tell I followed instructions perfectly. Anyone have any ideas?
I have an itch for cookies tonight, and if I wasn’t such a lazy bum, I would make these for myself! Yum!
These look like they would melt in an instant!
Oh these will be made :-)
I’ve been making something like these cookies for years and they’re are, quite possibly, my favorites. I was just thinking last night that I’ve gotta get going so both my sons can go home with some of ‘Mom’s Christmas Cookies’. I think I’m gonna give your recipe a try. They look delicious!
ohhhh, these look & sound amazing! butter + walnut + sugar, can’t go wrong with that.
xo, cheyenne
THESE LOOK AMAZING. I really love your writing style too, is it weird that you make things seem more delicious? haha x
Drea xo
Drea’s Junkyard
These are beautiful! I love snowball cookies and I love walnuts…perfect. going to try them with the tone of black walnuts harvrsted from the trees in our yard last year. (Saw the comment above, so I will mix them with some english walnuts too)
Thanks! Love your blog…love your recipes!
Oh my goodness, those sound absolutely fantastic! Love the powdered sugar too.. and healthy fats, right?!
Progressive makes the best little inexpensive nut chopper…makes the job so easy and clean up is a snap. This recipe is going in my permanent file…superb, they just came out of the oven and my house smells delicious!
Oh Honey Hush! You had me at the title. My family’s been making Russian Tea Cakes all my life, but your spin sounds so delicious, Joy! For our cookies, we roll in powdered sugar twice: once right out of the oven, as you suggest, and again a bit later to make the powdery outer layer. Yours look like ours. Yum!
Okay, off to the store for walnuts right now.
I love how you write! Thanks so much for another awesome recipe!
This is now on my holiday entertaining list. Looks so yummy!
We definitely have these in my family….though we use pecans and call them snowballs! It is super fun to see all the cultural iterations, but I keep coming g back to the delicious shortbread, butter-centric version. The best part as a kid was the first rolling in powdered sugar while warm…the warm cookie and sugar formed a gluey paste of dough on your fingers to the point where you’d have to stop, lick your fingers, wash hands, repeat. Perfection!
These are one of my favorite types of cookies ever! Brings back so many great memories of making them with my grandmother.
I left a comment earlier….we always made these, only with pecans, and rolled them twice, once while hot and then again when they cooled. It was important to make these small enough to pop into your mouth, if you had to bite them you ended up wearing confectioner’s sugar. I’m going to try the walnut version this time around, too. Oh, and as for black walnuts, I love those, they make the best Toll House cookies ever!
Been making these for many years and they are a family favorite. The recipe I was given was called “Russian Tea Cakes,” but it is the very same. After rolling in the sugar while warm (hot even) I roll them again when they are completely cool. No such thing as too much sugar.
I love these types of cookies, but I have never made them before! I’m totally going to make these now! Thanks for the recipe!
Love these kind of cookies!
I love this type of cookie but don’t ususally have success making them — they end up too dry and crumbly. But I see your recipe is flour based whereas mine was confectioner sugar based. Will definitely give your recipe a try this year!
My hands down fav Xmas cookie was my mom’s version of these, with pecans instead of walnuts. We always rolled in XXX sugar twice–once while hot and again once cooled. I’m going to have to try these. As usual, gorgeous pictures.
https://cookingmania.yuku.com
Yummmm. Thanks for sharing this. Would the recipe work with coconut oil instead of butter? I love walnuts with coconut flavor too.
These remind me of Mexican wedding cookies, LOVE!
Hot diggity…it’d be fun to see how many of these i could fit in my mouth at once, I’m thinking 8!
In an effort to watch my calorie intake this holiday season I gave my guys only two choices for sweets that I would make. They picked ginger cookies and bark. I really hoped they would pick these as I like them much more. Oh well, if I’m going to be a Bah Humbug then I can’t complain when they don’t pick what I like best.
Looks so delicious, walnuts the best part, love it!
I love these sneaky cookies. Why sneaky? Because they’re bite-sized and I keep sneaking them one by one throughout the holidays! haha!
Gorgeous! I grew up making and eating (mostly eating) an almond cookie similar to this one. I love how melty delicious they are.
THIS PICTURE: https://spcdn.shortpixel.ai/spio/ret_img,q_orig,to_webp,s_webp/joythebaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Butter-Walnut-Cookies-10-e1417753037185.jpg Holy cow, gorgeous. I want to eat them all.
What kind of camera do you use??
Also? Loving the new comment system!
Love these Joy! Beautiful shots as always :)
Where’d you get that gorgeous wooden handled mixing spoon?!
I love your writing – it makes me smile every time! Not an easy feat at 6am on the bus to work. Thank you!
Looks absolutely delicious – perfect for a holiday party!
x Sarah
https://www.bohochiccafe.com
my family makes a cookie every year very similar to this. it was my great grandmother’s recipe – we call them snowballs!
these are totally like snowballs!
We called then snowballs too, but we made them with pecans. We rolled them twice, once while hot out of the oven, and once after they cooled.
https://cookingmania.yuku.com
I noticed you used English walnuts. If I used black walnuts do you think that would change the taste too dramatically or would black walnuts be too overpowering?
i love black walnuts and think they would be wonderful in this recipe! you might even consider using a mix of both black and English for a nice balance!
We used to pick black walnuts, which are strong, but they make the most wonderful chocolate chip Tolll House cookies.
https://cookingmania.yuku.com
I absolutely love these! You continue to amaze and inspire me with your work, Joy!
I made a version of these yummy cookies just yesterday. Mine included pecans and almonds instead of walnuts, I will try walnuts next!
They look sooo cute ad yummie!
These are very similar to Russian tea cakes! We’ve been making them in my family for as long as I can remember. Absolutely delicious! :)
yes! i think every culture has some version of these cookies, right?
They look great – perfect for Christmas. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
If I will find a bit time this weekend I must immediately try out this so yummy sounding recipe as I love walnuts!
xx from Bavaria/Germany, Rena
International Giveaway: Christmas Surprise with Self Interest
http://www.dressedwithsoul.com
yum, these sound amazing!