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These almond snowball cookies are spiced Christmas cookies with a twist: they’re naturally gluten free, made with almond flour and cozy chai spices!
It’s easy to judge a cookie by its appearance. For every good recipe we share, there’s usually several behind-the-scenes failures. And that’s absolutely the case with these chai spice almond snowball cookies! These cookies were months in the making. The challenge: we wanted to create a tasty, gluten-free Christmas cookie with normal sounding ingredients. After a few attempts that were complete bombs, a new idea for chai spiced almond snowball cookies surfaced. After numerous attempts and melted cookies and lots of taste testing and maybe a little cursing (oops!), this recipe came to be. Keep reading for this chai spiced almond snowball cookies recipe.
Related: Perfect Homemade Peanut Butter Cups
How to make chai spice almond snowball cookies
What came from all the trial and error is a buttery, rich chai spice cookie that got rave reviews from friends and family alike. The cardamom is the star of the show–I never realized cardamom is what gives chai spice its familiar zing! Try to find some ground cardamom for this recipe. With the leftover cardamom, you may find yourself wanting to add a pinch in all of your baked goods! We’ve used coconut sugar an alternative sweetener that’s still sugary but a bit lower on the glycemic scale; you can feel free to substitute brown or white sugar. This is our first spiced Christmas cookie recipe of the season, and it’s one I know we’ll be making for Christmases to come.
Important: when you’re rolling out the cookies, work quickly to avoid the butter softening, which results in a melted cookie in the oven. We recommend refrigerating half of the dough while rolling out the first half of the cookies.
Almond flour vs almond meal
This chai spice almond snowball cookies are made using almond flour (ground almonds). We like to use almond flour in our naturally gluten free desserts. Some grocery stories carry both almond flour and almond meal.
What’s the difference between almond flour vs almond meal? Both are made from ground almonds. Almond flour is ground finer and made from blanched almonds, which have no skins. Almond meal is coarser ground, and contains the skins of the almonds. Because the texture of these cookies is dependent on the light and fluffy texture of almond flour, make sure to only use almond flour in this recipe.
Since almond flour can be a little pricey, here’s a coupon for $1 any Bob’s Red Mill brand product. Happy Baking!
Looking for Christmas cookie recipes?
Aside from these chai spiced snowball cookies, here are a few of our favorite Christmas cookie recipes:
- Soft Gingerbread Cookies
- Peppermint Meringues
- Ginger Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches
- The Best Soft Ginger Molasses Cookies
- Shortbread Cookies with Chocolate Drizzle
- Cherry Quinoa Chocolate Bark
- Narwhal Gingerbread Cutout Cookies
- Chewy Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
- Healthy Peanut Butter Buckeye Balls
- Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies
- Cranberry Pistachio Chocolate Clusters
- Easy Peppermint Bark
This recipe is…
This Chai Spice Almond Snowball Cookies recipe is gluten free and vegetarian. See the note in the recipe for a vegan variation.
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Chai Spice Almond Snowball Cookies
- Prep Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Yield: 20 1x
Description
These almond snowball cookies are spiced Christmas cookies with a twist: they’re made with almond flour and cozy chai spices!
Ingredients
- ¼ cup butter, at room temperature
- 3 tablespoons coconut sugar (such as Bob’s Red Mill, or substitute white sugar)
- 1 ¼ cup almond flour (such as Bob’s Red Mill)*
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1⁄2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1⁄2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1⁄2 teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom (no substitutions!)
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup powdered sugar, for dusting
Instructions
- In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, mix together butter and sugar until fully combined. Add the remainder of the ingredients (except for the powdered sugar) and mix again until a cohesive dough forms. Turn out onto plastic wrap and shape into a ball; refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (make sure the temperature is true; adjust if your oven runs hotter than normal). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Roll into approximately 20 1-inch balls, pressing together the dough as necessary where it is crumbly. Important: Work quickly to avoid the butter softening, which results in a melted cookie in the oven. We recommend refrigerating half of the dough while rolling out the first half of the cookies.
- Place the cookies onto the baking sheet and bake for 8 minutes, turning the pan halfway through for even baking, until the cookies are light golden brown but still soft. (Be careful not to over bake or the cookies may start to lose their shape.) Remove the cookies from the oven and cool them on the pan for 10 minutes (avoid touching; the cookies will solidify as they cool). Once hardened, transfer to a rack to cool completely.
- When completely cool, place ¼ cup powdered sugar on a plate and roll each ball in the sugar until coated.
Notes
*Do not substitute almond meal, which is a different product; use only almond flour here! For a vegan variation, use ¼ cup melted, room temperature coconut oil in place of the butter; mix together all ingredients (except powdered sugar) in a bowl with a wooden spoon, then bake at 325°F for 10 minutes. The resulting cookie is not as rich and has a more crumbly texture; you may want to consider adding a bit more sugar in this variation to make up for the lost richness.
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Almond Flour, Snowball Cookies, Almond Snowball Cookies, Chai Spice Cookies, Christmas Cookies, Gluten Free
This post is sponsored by Bob’s Red Mill. All opinions are our own; we’re huge fans of their products and use them often. Thank you for supporting the sponsors who keep A Couple Cooks in action!
I love these! cardamom is one of my favourite flavours, and these cookies, with their all almond-meal texture, sound like they would be an absolute dream. Perfection!
I am definitely a behind-the-scenes person. Thanks for the effort it took to get these cookies right, just for us. ;-) I can’t wait to try them! I bet they would also be nice with a dusting of coconut flour instead of powdered sugar to mirror the coconut sugar in the cookie. Will let you know!
Made these last night for tonight’s dinner party. They are amazing and couldn’t be easier to make either. When mixing the ingredients I was afraid there wasn’t enough moisture to form a cohesive dough but I kept mixing like you said and it worked! :) I like both the coconut flour and powdered sugar dusting. I will definitely be keeping this recipe in my repertoire!
I totally feel for you! I’ve had countless recipes in my year of blogging that didnt turn out as well as I’d hoped! Im glad you found the light at the end of the tunnel with these beautiful cookies!! Im also happy that there are no weird ingredients that I have to buy to make them!
I am always on the lookout for easy holiday-themed cookies like this! I like the make big batches or “healthier” cookies so that I can sneak some of them in me before making the more butter-filled ones closer to the holidays to give away. The chai spice in these sounds great!
These sound delicious! But, do you think I can use regular flour? Sadly I am allergic to nuts…
I love the sound of these! Anything chai gets my attention, and so little sugar! Must make. I’ll play with other options to coat them, though, and hopefully won’t ruin them. ;)
Oh, and I certainly watch the DVD extras too.
Completely agree with the cardamom. I bought some a couple months ago for A Cozy Kitchen’s chai spiced snickerdoodles and I haven’t stopped using it, I love the flavor it brings! These look so perfect and unique for the holidays, and can you imagine the smells from the oven?! YES.
What a wonderful, wonderful recipe. I’m gonna make these!
These look fantastic. Excited that there is coconut sugar in these little snowballs – I bet it goes wonderfully with those chai spices! Lovely!
Snowball cookies are one of my faves… and they are always so overlooked! I’m going to have to make a batch this year as part of my holiday baking… love how much healthier this recipe is!