These buttery, lightly sweet, melt-in-your-mouth Low FODMAP Pecan Snowball Cookies are made with gluten-free and gum-free flour.
It doesn’t happen too often, but sometimes my engineering experience influences my baking. In the case of these cookies, I found myself comparing the cookie dough to concrete. No, I don’t mean that these cookies are as hard as concrete. In fact, they are quite the opposite and melt in your mouth! You see, concrete is actually a mixture of different components (ingredients). You have your Portland cement, water and aggregates (rocks). Portland cement is the binding agent that when mixed with water and aggregates, cures to create concrete. This may seem crazy, but I had a whole semester-long class on concrete. What’s even crazier is that it’s actually a lot like baking!
Engineering Cookies
In the case of these cookies, the flours and sugar are the Portland cement, the butter is the water and the pecans are the aggregates. I was having trouble with the cookies staying together. They would just crumble, which is a very common problem when baking gluten-free (especially without gums like xanthan and guar). I realized I had too much aggregate and the aggregate was too big. In other words, I had too many pecans and I didn’t chop them fine enough. The cookie wasn’t binding to the pecans properly. Anyone who knows how to cook, knows what a sieve is. Well, they are used in measuring aggregate for concrete too! I needed to change the sieve-size of the pecans.
After applying some civil engineering know-how to my cookies, I finally got them to turn out. They are delicate, buttery, and only slightly sweet, everything a snowball cookie should be. And everything concrete is not! Once again, I used my new gum-free, gluten-free flour blend (see recipe below) and it worked great. I took these into work and my co-workers seemed enjoyed them, if the powdered sugar trail from the break room was any indication! Whether you call these Russian tea cakes, Mexican wedding cookies or good old Snowballs, you will want to add these Low FODMAP Pecan Snowball Cookies to your cookie tray this year (and hopefully not upset your tummy in the process!).
Try these other Low-FODMAP holiday recipes from my collection:
Pecan Snowball Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, divided
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/3 cup Dianne’s Gum-Free, Gluten-Free, Low-FODMAP Flour Blend
- 2 tablespoons very finely chopped pecans
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Beat the butter and 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Beat in the vanilla and salt. Slowly add the flour and blend until fully incorporated. Mix in the pecans.
- Roll dough into 1″ balls and place on prepared baking sheet. Bake 15 minutes. Let cookies cool completely on baking sheet before removing (it is important to do this – the cookies are very fragile when warm!).
- Place the remaining 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar in a small bowl and roll each cooled cookie in the sugar until evenly coated.
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Your concrete analogy cracked me up, haha. By any chance have you ever substituted arrowroot for cornstarch in your flour blend? I've read that it's usually a one-to-one substitution so I'm thinking it would work pretty much the same? Thanks!
I have not tried arrowroot, but I have a feeling it would probably work. Thanks for your comment!
These look delicious. I'm going to make them this weekend. Thank you!!
I made them! So good!
Glad you liked them!
(question) These will be made this week – so excited – but do you know if I leave out the aggregate (nuts) will they still bind properly? I used to LOVE Mexican wedding cakes/cookies pre-celiac. Being no-eggs presently – these will be so very welcome!
I think these will work without the nuts.
Can you substitute a GF one-to-one flour blend?
Yes, I think that would work for this recipe. I haven’t tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work! Let me know how it goes.
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