I'm Back, with Matcha and Cocoa Snowballs!

It's been a month. A month since school started, meaning a long lonely month without any baking done. I miss my spatula dearly. I miss carefully weighing out ingredients. I miss the familiar 'ding' sound the oven makes when the baking time is over. I miss taking photos of the end product and then munching it away with satisfaction.

Being a Year 13 student is not easy, the work just comes crashing on us like waves and never stops. Even baking has to step aside as I prioritise university applications, personal statements, tests and internal assessments first.

The list is endless.


But thankfully, I finally got the chance to breathe, take a break and bake something last week. My friend C., whom I've known since kindergarten, keeps on reminding me during our French lessons to bake and update my blog. She's one of the few people that reads my blog (she even showed her mum!), and it's always nice to know that other people appreciate what I do. So a shout out here to C. - Thank you for all the encouragement! :D

The name of these little treats might be a little confusing - the snowballs, in fact are just matcha and cocoa cookies dusted in icing sugar, so they resemble snowballs. But texture wise, they resemble snow too - because they melt in your mouth. They are so addictive it's hard not to pop these small little cookies into your mouth one by one until they're all gone!


They are incredibly easy to make, and I really enjoyed making them as I weighed the dough out equally and rolled them in my palms until each was a perfect sphere. Unfortunately, maybe the oven temperature was not correct or maybe because I didn't chill the dough overnight, they flattened out a bit so they are more like, snow domes. The dough is quite versatile too - I'd imagine that the matcha and cocoa powder can be swapped with espresso powder to create a coffee flavour.


Once they were properly cool and well dusted with icing sugar, I packaged them into small plastic bags as (extremely belated) birthday gifts - one for C., and the other for A., whom I chat to every single Biology lesson. So, Happy 17th to those girls!

Right, so back to work for now. I hope that I'll get to do some more baking soon!

Matcha and Cocoa Snowball Cookies
Adapted from Vanlily Sweetie Life (original recipe in Chinese)

Makes 25-30 (both flavours combined)

90g Butter, at room temperature
Pinch salt
30g Icing sugar
50g Ground almonds
100g Cake flour
6g Matcha powder
10g Cocoa powder
Icing sugar, for dusting

1. Using a wooden spoon, beat the softened butter and icing sugar until well combined.
2. Sift in the ground almonds and cake flour, mix well.
3. Spilt the dough in half. Gently knead the matcha powder into one portion, and the cocoa powder into the other portion.
4. Wrap the two doughs separately with plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes. (original recipe says to chill overnight)
5. Preheat oven to 170 C.
6. Working with one dough at a time, take 10g of dough and shape into balls. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat until all the dough is shaped.
7. Bake for 15-30 minutes until lightly coloured.
8. Let cool for a while, and transfer them to a cooling rack. Whilst the cookies are still warm, dust them with icing sugar.
9. When thoroughly cool, dust again with icing sugar and store in an airtight container.