Almond Balls

Rob has dubbed these cookies "Angel Balls". I'm not really sure why but I think it's funny and I laugh to myself every time I think about it. I tend to laugh to myself rather frequently but that's beside the point. I recently made something similar at a friend's house but her recipe was secret (shhhhhh) so I got this recipe from my mom. I think they're great for the holidays.

Printable Recipe

INGREDIENTS

1 cup butter (softened)
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup ground almonds - blanched (finely chopped)
2/3 cup oats (chopped)
2 cups flour
1 cup powdered sugar for coating

DIRECTIONS

In a large bowl cream butter, sugar, salt and vanilla with mixer until well combined. Finely chop almonds in a food processor until they reach a consistency similar to flour. Beat into the butter mixture. Roughly chop oatmeal in a food processor and add to the mixture and stir. Add the flour, one cup at a time and stir by hand until all ingredients are well combined.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Take about a teaspoon of dough and roll into a tight ball. The ball should be just a little smaller than a quarter. Space the cookies one inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Since there is no leavening in these cookies they do not rise, therefore they can be placed close together. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the bottom of the cookies are light brown.

Remove cookie sheet from the oven and let cool for at least 5 minutes before taking the cookies off and moving them to a cooling rack. If you try to remove them from the cookie sheet right away they will fall apart....I know this because I tried.

Once cooled, toss the cookies in powdered sugar and eat. Yum!