SOUTHERN PECAN BUTTERBALLS RECIPES

Steps:

• In a large bowl, cream butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Sift in flour and salt; stir until well mixed. Mix in nuts. Refrigerate 1 hour. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
• Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set but not brown. Remove from oven and cool slightly on wire cooling racks. While cookies are baking, place the powdered sugar in a shallow dish.
• While still warm, roll cookies in powdered sugar. When cookies have cooled, roll them again in the confectioners sugar to give them a nice even coating of sugar. Store in an airtight container.

Steps:

• "Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Note: I wouldn't use nonstick cooking spray on the baking pans for these cookies. It will cause the cookies to get a bit too brown on the bottoms. If you don't have parchment paper, just use an ungreased baking sheet. In a medium bowl, combine shortening, powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix until smooth. You'll want to use your stand mixer or a handheld electric mixer for this. Start on a low setting so the powdered sugar doesn't fly up. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Give it all a stir with a large fork. Then gently begin adding the flour mixture to the shortening mixture. Add just a little at a time so the flour doesn't fly everywhere. Stir until combined. So I just took these pecans and pounded them out with my heavy meat tenderizer. You don't want huge chunks of pecans in the cookies. You want nice small chips. Stir pecans into batter. Roll dough into walnut-sized balls. Place them about 1 1/2 inches apart on your cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes until the edges just begin to brown slightly. Note: If you have a conventional oven, it really is best to only bake one cookie sheet at a time. Baking more than one at a time will often cause uneven baking. While the cookies are baking, get a bowl of powdered sugar ready for dipping. Let cookies cool for just a couple of minutes. While still warm, roll the cookies in the powdered sugar. Place them on a platter (or just roll out a sheet of wax paper like I do) and let cookies finish cooling. Once they are cool, roll cookies a second time into the powdered sugar. The second dipping ensures even and smooth coating."