Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Beat the butter with the vanilla briefly, until just mixed and still somewhat firm. Sift together the flour, icing sugar and salt, then blend into the butter mixture little by little until a loose dough forms. Roll dough into small, round balls and insert one chocolate chunk in the center (optional).
3. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
4. Cool completely then roll in additional icing sugar.

I ended up making two batches of these – so 80 small cookies in total. It’s one of those ‘simple’ recipes that I think you really have to practice to get right. For the second batch, the next day, I omitted the chocolate chunks because I wound up preferring the simple interplay between the butter and walnuts. I also flattened out half of the balls to make them look more cookie-like, and rather than rolling the other half in icing sugar, I put the sugar in a fine mesh sieve and tapped it over top the of all the cookies. The result was much more even and pleasing to the eye.

While I like the look of the flattened out cookies, I prefer the texture of the more traditional ball shape.

It is better to give than to receive and all that, but it was definitely fun to receive some cookies, too!