Growing up, my family would make HUNDREDS of Christmas cookies! My mom made sure all our closest friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family members received a plate/ box of cookies before the holidays. Some of my fondest memories surround this time of year, being in the kitchen with my mom, brother, nana, and great grandma, baking, decorating and of course eating cookies.

As I’ve gotten older, I have realized just how special something as simple as getting in the kitchen with your loved ones and baking cookies can be!

This year, I wanted to recreate some of my favorite Christmas cookie recipes from my childhood. In this post I am going to provide you with our original recipe in addition to a modified version that is vegan and gluten-free!

So without further ado, SNOWBALLS!

These light, pecan, melt in your mouth cookies have always been a favorite of mine! I love everything about them: the taste, the look, and especially how freaking easy they are to make!

Being someone who cuts out most gluten and dairy products in her diet, I wanted to recreate this classic cookie recipe so a larger number of people could enjoy them!

First, The Original Recipe

Note that the dough will seem a little sand-like in texture at first. I like to mix the dough with my hands towards the end, especially when incorporating the pecans. Higher altitudes typically require a touch more flour but I usually just eyeball it based on the feel of the dough.

Make sure your cookies are completely cooled down before the second roll in powdered sugar, otherwise the sugar will melt and become sticky.

When making this recipe with butter, I recommend a pasture-raised option such as Vital Farms! If you’re like me, you want to know that your animal products are humanely and ethically sourced. Vital proteins does a fantastic job of just that! For some of you, you might be saying.. “Ya, but this brand is more expensive”. Yes, this is true; however, I personally feel confident in supporting brands that do it right and are treating their animals with care, therefore, I don’t mind spending the extra dollar or two. 🙂

The Vegan, Gluten Free version

For this version you can substitute equal amounts of avocado oil or coconut oil in place of the butter. I used avocado oil and these bad boys came out just as good as the ones I made with butter. I ended up sprinkling a little extra gluten-free flour into the dough towards the end as it was a bit softer than I would like pre-bake. But, again I just eye-balled the extra sprinkle. These cookies are very very soft/ crumbly when FIRST out of the oven. Have patiences and allow them to cool on the baking sheet until you can pick them up without them falling apart.

I sincerely hope you enjoy this recipe! Comment below with pictures of your snowball cookies, tag your cookies @the.morning.bird on instagram, and let me know what you think!

More Christmas Cookie recipes to come this week!

With Holiday Cheer,

-Britt, Creator of The Morning Bird