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5 from 4 votes

Snowballs Recipe

Melt-in-your-mouth snowballs, little cakes dipped in syrup and covered in coconut
Prep Time1 hour
Cook Time30 minutes
Course: Dessert
Keyword: cake dipped in syrup, snowballs, south african snowballs
Servings: 24

Ingredients

  • 125 gram/1/2 cup butter room temperature
  • 1/3 cup/80ml castor sugar
  • 1 tspn vanilla essence
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups/500ml self-raising flour
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup apricot jam
  • 1&1/4 cup desiccated coconut
  • few drops pink food colouring

Syrup

  • 1&1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup water

Instructions

Syrup

  • Add sugar and water to a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer until syrup thickens a little
  • Syrup shouldn't be too thick as you want it to penetrate into the little cakes
  • Keep the syrup warm on the stovetop, at the lowest setting

Snowballs

  • Add a few drops of food colouring to the coconut and set aside
  • Preheat Oven to 180 degrees Celsius
  • Cream the butter until light and fluffy
  • Gradually add the sugar and beat until creamy. Mix in the vanilla essence
  • Add the eggs, one at a time and continue beating until well combined. Add a few drops of food colouring
  • Add the flour and milk and beat into a thick batter (see Note 5)
  • Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Fill a piping bag with the batter. Cut a hole at the tip, depending on how big you prefer your snowballs. Pipe the batter into little rounds, cut with a scissor and use a little water to smooth the tops. Bare in mind that the batter will spread whilst baking
  • Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 8 minutes or until slightly golden brown on the edges
  • Cool on a cooling rack
  • Heat the apricot jam in the microwave for 20 seconds (See Note 2)
  • Sandwich the cakes with apricot jam. Dip in syrup and roll in coconut

Notes

  1. I made 24 mini snowballs but if you want them larger you can make 12. Please bare in mind that the dough spreads
  2. If you prefer you an make icing with icing sugar mixed with milk or warm water and sandwich the cakes with that instead of the jam. You can use 1/2 cup icing sugar and 2 tablespoons warm water or milk
  3. If you don't have a piping bag you can use a ziplock bag, just cut a litle hole in one corner. 
  4. I keep my syrup warm on the lowest temperature on the stovetop, this works for me and prevents the syrup from becoming crystallised. If syrup thickens too much, you can add a little water
  5. If you want a more crumbly, drier texture for the snowballs you can omit the milk from the recipe and you will then have a biscuit like dough. You can roll these into balls and bake, you may need to adjust the baking time