How to Make Cherry Pistachio Snowball Cookies at Home

Snowball cookies are a classic Christmas cookie, and this recipe dresses them up fancy. Pistachio nuts and maraschino cherries make these cherry pistachio snowball cookies festive and fun!

Growing up, the Christmas cookie tray displayed four different kinds of cookies.  There was the thumbprint cookies with either red or green jelly, buckeye balls, imitation strawberry cookies and finally, snowball cookies.

I hated that green jelly with a passion, the strawberries were far too sweet, the snowballs were dry and had too many nuts for my liking.  The buckeye balls, however, were fabulous.

I’ve made it my mission to recreate the cookies from my youth.  While the buckeyes have remained timeless, I did remake strawberry cookies into something a little less sweet, I ditched the green-jellied thumbprint for a chocolate peppermint thumbprint, and now I’ve recreated classic snowball cookies.

These cookies still have nuts, but where traditional snowball cookies have chopped pecans, these have pistachios.

I simply adore pistachios.  They take baked goods to a whole new level.  These pudding cookies would be rather boring if they weren’t full of crunchy pistachios!

The flavor of pistachios is unparalleled, especially when combined with maraschino cherries like in these spumoni cupcakes.  There is something about how the salty pistachios and the sweet cherries taste when they are baked together.

Green-hued nuts and bright red cherries make these snowball cookies especially festive. Snowball cookies are quite easy to prepare, so if you need a last-minute cookie, this is it!

If you are really short on time, enlist the help of family;  kids will love rolling your cookies in the powdered sugar.

Snowball cookies, I love you, but it is time for a change!

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup chopped pistachios
• 1/2 cup chopped maraschino cherries
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar

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