Buttery tender snowball cookies swirled with decadent mini chocolate chips and coated with sweet powdered sugar. Likely to become a favorite holiday cookie!
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grind almonds in a food processor to tiny bits, set aside. In a mixing bowl whisk together flour and salt, set aside.
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream together butter and 1/2 cup (64g) powdered sugar until combined (not pale and fluffy, just blended and slightly creamy).
Mix in vanilla, then with mixer set on low speed slowly add in flour and salt mixture and mix just until combined.
Add in chocolate chips and almonds and mix to evenly distribute (fold batter with a spatula if needed to gather nuts from bottom.
Scoop dough out 1 Tbsp at a time and roll into a ball. Transfer dough balls to an ungreased cookie sheet** (fitting about 16 per sheet and spacing evenly apart).
Bake in preheated oven 10 - 12 minutes until bottoms are lightly golden brown. Let cool for just a few minutes (until they are cool enough to handle) then pour remaining 1 cup (128g) powdered sugar into a small mixing bowl.
Dip and roll cookies in powdered sugar to get a light coating then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat process with remaining cookie dough.
Once cookies are cool roll again in powdered sugar, this time giving them a thicker coating. Store cookies in an airtight container.
Notes
I recommend softening the butter about halfway just so the cookies don't spread very much while baking. It should make an indentation in the butter when pressed with your thumb but shouldn't be as soft as room temperature butter.
I don't recommend dark non-stick cookie sheets for this recipe, they always brown cookies too much on bottom.