The Virtual Cookie Exchange Blog Hop

***NEW: for an updated list of recipes, check out the appropriately entitled UPDATE!!!***

You know those cookie exchanges that are so popular during the holiday season? The ones where you bake a gazillion dozen cookies to take to a party where you give them away by the dozen to other participants in exchange for a dozen of theirs?

Well, turns out you can’t really do one of those on the Internet…but you can host a Virtual Cookie Exchange, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’ll start you off with one of my favourite holiday cookie recipes here today, and then next week you’ll be able to visit four other authors for their favourite recipes (I’ll post their links below my recipe as soon as they put them up next week), and they’ll tag four more authors for the week after, and so on.

The hop will run for four weeks, by the end of which time (if all goes according to plan), you’ll have collected up to 341 new recipes you can try. Sound like fun? I thought so, too!

Here’s my contribution for this week: the aptly named Snowballs, a deliciously shortbread-like round confection rolled in icing sugar, each the perfect size for a single bite and soooo addictive. But it’s all good, because the recipe makes somewhere in the neighbourhood of 6-7 dozen (which makes it perfect for any of those real-life exchanges you might be attending!). I hope you enjoy! 🙂

Snowballs

2 cups butter

8 tablespoons icing (confectioner’s) sugar

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups ground nuts/coconut (optional  & just as good without!)

additional icing sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 250*F. Cream together butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in flour and vanilla (and nuts/coconut if using). Roll into small balls about an inch across. Place one inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake one hour. Roll in icing sugar while still hot. Cool, and then roll again.

Remember to check back on Tuesday next week (December 2) for more recipes from these awesome authors (be sure to subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss out!):

 Marie Bilodeau

Mia Marshall

Kerry Schafer

D.D. Syrdal

P.S. Looking for a great book gift? Put a little romance in someone’s holiday with Gwynneth Ever After, now in e-book and print!