Growing up in India we used a lot of cashew and peanuts in our cooking than any other nuts. Almonds came a close third. Cashews were expensive and it was reserved only for special occasions and most of the kids would end up grabbing a handful of broken cashew pieces while some dessert was being cooked in the kitchen and being yelled my mom, grandmother, aunt, etc for plundering the cashews. Nostalgic!
Back in the 80s, there used to be small bakeries in each area that baked fresh bread every day and some of these bakeries made these simple yet tasty cashew cookies.
In India, we called them biscuits. I came to know "cookies" only in 2003 after I moved to the US after my marriage. Anyway, these biscuits or cookies were square in shape, had small pieces of cashew inside and some of them were topped on top of the cookies too.
Thinking of it now after almost a decade of baking, I believe those were the shortbread type of cookies that also incorporated these broken pieces of nuts. Even though I wanted to replicate those cookies I postponed it for another time because only a few days ago I baked the Scottish shortbread cookies and I didn't want to bake another shortbread right away.
Instead, I adapted these pecan meltaways or snowball cookies to make these crispy and delicious cashew cookies.
The cookies are rightly named melt aways because it melts in your mouth. Light and tender cookies with the perfect amount of sweetness. It's a nice tea-time snack.
Recipe
Eggless Cashew Snowball Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup confectioner's sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2-¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup chopped cashews
- additional confectioner's sugar for rolling cookies
Instructions
- In a large bowl, cream butter, and confectioners' sugar until light and fluffy, 5-7 minutes.
- Beat in vanilla.
- To the creamed mixture add flour and salt; mix well.
- Stir in cashews. Refrigerate until chilled. I left it overnight and baked it the next day. But anywhere between 30-60 mins should be fine.
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Roll into 1-in. balls and place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes or until set.
- Roll warm cookies in additional confectioners' sugar; cool completely on wire racks.
- Roll cooled cookies again in confectioners' sugar.
My Notes
- I would probably increase the quantity of cashews to one cup from ¾th of a cup.
- As always test bake a few cookies at first to see how well it spreads or doesn't spread and also to ascertain the baking time. Test baking ensures that you won't end up wasting a whole batch of cookies if something goes wrong.
- The number of cookies depends upon how big or small you shape them. I got fewer cookies than mentioned in the original recipe.
Taste & Texture
- The cashew cookies were light and airy. The sweetness was just right. I would probably add some more broken cashews into the dough because I love the crunchy texture and taste of cashews. Other than that no changes needed at all.
Nutrition
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