Baking is one of the great pleasures of the holiday season.

To elevate your cookie selection, add my Chocolate Snowballs to your repertoire.

Gooey, chocolatey and bite-sized, these will be a hit with all your fellow revelers.

MAKE YOUR OWN RECIPE

Using the recipe below as background, how might you make your own recipe? How about you:

Add ingredients?

• Nuts, dried fruits and/or flavor elements like orange zest would be great additions

Change the format?

• Use those fancy molds you’ve been storing in your closet to create beautiful bites – just make sure you bake these a bit longer (use a toothpick to test doneness)

CHOCOLATE SNOWBALLS

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs – Butter
• 2 lbs – Chocolate
• 16 – Eggs
• 8 cups – Sugar
• 4 cups – Flour
• 4 tsp – Baking powder
• 4 cups – Powdered sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350*
2. Spray a cake pan with nonstick baking spray
3. Melt your chopped chocolate and diced butter in a dry bowl placed over a pot of barely simmering water – use a bowl large enough to fit on top of the pot and only fill the pot about 1/4 of the way up so that the bowl doesn’t actually make contact with the water
4. Stir it consistently with a rubber spatula and remove it from the heat before it’s completely melted to ensure that you don’t burn the chocolate. Once off the heat, continue stirring until smooth – allow to cool
5. In a stand mixer, combine eggs and sugar – do not overmix
6. Mix in your melted chocolate
7. Add flour and baking powder and mix until just combined
8. Pour mixture into cake pan and bake for approximately 30 minutes until the exterior has hardened but the interior is still relatively soft
9. Cool pan on a wire rack. When cool enough, remove the cake from the cake pan and place it in the freezer for approximately 10 minutes
10. Using your hands, crumble the cake and form balls from the dough
11. Roll the balls in the powdered sugar and allow them to set in the freezer