Red Velvet Snowball Cookies

1. Combine butter, the 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, pure vanilla extract, and red food coloring in a mixing bowl. Mix with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 1-2 minutes.
2. Add flour, cocoa, and salt. Mix again until ingredients come together to form a crumbly dough. Stir in chopped pecans.
3. Cover and chill dough for about 20 minutes.
4. Scoop 1-tablespoon of dough, squish in your hand 2-3 times to bring the dough together, and roll into a ball. Place on a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough.
5. Bake at 375℉ for 7-9 minutes, until bottoms are just barely beginning to get a little golden brown. Do not over bake.
6. Remove from oven and allow to stand on the pan for 2-3 minutes.
7. Handling the cookies gently, roll each warm cookie in confectioners’ sugar until well coated. Place on a cooling rack; cool completely.
8. Once completely cooled, roll each cookie in confectioners’ sugar again.
9. Store in an airtight container.

NOTES:

• Don’t just soften the butter — bring it to room temperature. Which means it will be very soft. This helps this rather crumbly dough come together much more easily.
• Be sure to add the red food coloring in the first step when mixing the butter mixture. This helps the coloring more easily incorporate throughout all the dough.
• Since the butter is so soft, chilling the dough for 20-30 minutes or so before baking firms the butter back up a bit and keeps the cookies from spreading when they bake.
• Use a 1-tablespoon cookie scoop to measure and prepare the cookie balls. This keeps them all the same size and makes prepping the cookie balls so easy!
• These cookies just puff a little bit when baking, so you can put a lot on the pan at once.  They only need a little space between them.
• Handle the cookies very gently when doing the first sugar roll while they’re hot.
• Keep your fingers very dry when rolling the cookies in confectioners’ sugar so you don’t have a sticky mess and get fingerprints all over the finished cookies.
• You can use chopped walnuts or almonds in place of the pecans, if you’d like.