Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Snowballs – Buttery cookie dough is baked with tons of cinnamon and chocolate chips and them rolled in cinnamon powdered sugar
December is the month when everyone gets out their rolling pins and mixers and stocks up on sugar and flour so they can bake up a storm. The most popular thing to make this month is cookies, of course. Whether it be for cookie exchanges, Christmas parties, gifts, or just because, cookies are #1 on the baking list.
I’ve got tons of cookie recipes on the blog to load you up through baking season. But here are a few of my favorites:
- Monster Cookies – These are chewy, peanut butter oatmeal cookies loaded with M&M’s. They are the easiest cookies on the blog and take no chill time so they’re ready in under 30 minutes
- Chocolate Espresso Snowcaps – These are rich, chocolate cookies with a hint of espresso flavor and covered in powdered sugar “snow”. I love their chewy texture and ultra-chocolaty flavor, which is enhanced by the espresso.
- Danish Butter Cookies – These are buttery, crispy cookies that are made with very few ingredients. They were inspired by the cookies I used to enjoy every Christmas in my childhood.
Today, I have a new favorite cookie to share with you. It’s a snowball cookie, which is a buttery, dense cookie rolled in powdered sugar. This version has my new favorite pair of flavors: cinnamon and chocolate. They taste incredible together and this cookie is just another recipe that proves it.
Check out my Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Snowballs!
What are snowballs?
These cookies are butter cookies which means that the texture comes from the butter, flour and sugar. There are no eggs or other leveners in the recipe so the cookies stay dense and the butter flavor really shines. In addition, because of this, the cookies barely spread out so they keep a beautiful round shape.
To transform these cookies from round butter cookies to snowballs, they simply get tossed in powdered sugar. The key to making really white snowballs, is tossing them in sugar twice. The cookies absorb the first layer of sugar so they lose their pretty look. Therefore, we toss them in sugar a second time to make them look really powdery.
How to make these snowball cookies
The key to butter cookies is cold dough. For these cookies, the cold dough is achieved by using cold butter and cutting it into the dry ingredients to turn it into crumbs.
Then, the mini chocolate chips are tossed into the flour-butter mixture. We use mini chocolate chips because the cookies are only about 1-2 inches in diameter. Therefore, if we used regular chocolate chips, they wouldn’t fit into this cookie properly and would make the cookies too chocolaty.
After the chocolate chips are added, you’ll notice that the dough is very crumbly. That’s okay! The cookies are formed in your hand when the buttery dough is compressed and slightly melts the butter crumbs to create a cookie ball.
The cookies are then baked for a short amount of time in a hot oven to ensure they bake fast and don’t let the butter melt too much. Then, they are cooled for a few minutes and finished off with a toss in cinnamon powdered sugar. Now, they’re ready for devouring!!
Tips & tricks
- The powdered sugar sticks to the cookies best when they are slightly warm. However, you don’t want to toss them in the sugar right out of the oven because they may fall apart.
- The butter in the cookies needs to be cool before going into the oven to ensure the cookies keep their round “snowball” shape. If the butter is too warm, they will flatten out during the baking process.
- Once baked, some of the cookies may have crispy, flat edges. Don’t worry – these will break off and leave a round, pretty shape once they cool and get tossed in the sugar.
Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Snowballs
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup powdered sugar divided
- 2½ teaspoons ground cinnamon divided
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter unsalted, cold
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets by lining with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Add flour, ½ cup of powdered sugar, 1½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, and salt together in a food processor. Pulse a few times to combine. Cut butter into cubes and add to food processor with vanilla extract. Pulse until butter turns into crumbs. Toss mixture with mini chocolate chips.
- Using your hands, grab about 1 tablespoon of mixture and press crumbs into a ball. The heat from your hands will help melt the butter slightly so it will take shape. Place ball on prepared baking sheet. Repeat with rest of the dough, placing dough balls no more than 1 inch apart. These cookies won't spread much so no need to keep them very separated. Chill them in the freezer for 10 minutes.
- Bake in preheated oven for 7-8 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. Remove from oven and let cool for 15 minutes. Place remaining powdered sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Toss cookies in powdered sugar twice. Serve immediately, or let them cool and then store for up to 3 days.
Pin for later:
More recipes you’ll love:
Pistachio Snowballs
Chocolate Espresso Snowcaps
Gingerbread Biscotti
What a perfect winter treat!
The closeups are my favorite – they make you want to rush to kitchen and make these snowballs ASAP! 🙂
These are so good! The kids loved them as well, will definitely be making them again.
I like how you tranformed them into snowballs, so easy to and looks make delicious.
Living in Arizona we don’t get snow so these cookies will be perfect to make snowballs without the cold! Tastier than snow too!
These look incredible! My two favorite things when baking are chocolate chips and cinnamon.
Perfect holiday treat. Looks amazingly delicious. Pinned to try this soob.
Your food photography is so beautiful! I really appreciate blogs that can both create and then capture wonderful recipes on camera!
My Grandma used to bake snowball cookies every Christmas when I was a kid. I will have to make some and share the memories of them with my kids.
wow this looks delicious! my mouth is watering 😀 I need to try these myself!