Recipe: Lime and Pecan Shortbread Snowballs

We've always been fond of the powdered-sugar-covered shortbread balls known as Mexican Wedding Cakes or Russian Teacakes. And this cookie belongs to that same family of buttery goodness. Here, pungent lime zest and toasted pecans lend the cookies extra character; cornstarch replaces some of the flour to make the cookies extra-tender.

Makes 4 dozen

1 cup butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon freshly grated lime zest

1 ¾ cups unbleached white flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup lightly toasted pecans, cooled and chopped

1 cup powdered sugar for rolling

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with baker's parchment.

2. In a medium mixing bowl, stir together butter, powdered sugar and lime zest. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch and salt. Add flour mixture and pecans all at once to butter mixture and stir just until mixture comes together to form dough.

3. Divide dough into four parts and shape each into a 3x4-inch rectangle. Cut each rectangle into 12 1-inch cubes. Arrange cubes of dough 1 inch apart on cookie sheets and bake 10 minutes.

4. As soon as cookies come out of the oven, sprinkle with powdered sugar. Allow the cookies to cool completely, then roll in powdered sugar again.

From Greg Atkinson