Chocolate Snowballs

One of my favorite holiday cookies are polvorones.  I love how the buttery shortbread engulfed in powdery sugar just melts in your mouth.  It's no wonder that these cookies make their way onto the Christmas cookie tray every year.  They are easy to make and usually one batch of dough yields 2 or 3 dozen cookies so there's still plenty to put on the tray after you've nibbled here and there.

This year though, I wanted to take my favorite polvorones and up the decadence factor by making them chocolatey.  Like a little brownie bite, these snowballs are sure to be a crowd-pleaser!
 
Dry ingredients:
1 1/2 cup unbleached flour
3/4 cup Ah!Laska baker's non-dairy cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:
8 tbsp (1 stick) Earth Balance butter, room temperature
3/4 cup succanat or organic dark brown sugar
1/4 cup evaporated cane juice
2 tsp Ener-G egg replacer
1/3 cup vanilla soy milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Coating:
1/2 cup vegan powdered sugar


Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in bowl.  In separate bowl, cream butter for several seconds.  Add brown sugar and evaporated cane juice and blend together.  Add egg replacer, soy milk and vanilla to butter mixture and blend.  In three separate intervals, add flour mixture to butter mixture and beat together.  On the last addition, you can mix with your hands since the dough will be a bit tough to beat with an electric mixer.


Once combined, roll into a ball and cover with plastic.  Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place powdered sugar in shallow bowl.  Pinch off about 1-1/2 tbsp size of dough (I used a melon ball scooper) and roll into ball-shape.  Place dough into powdered sugar, roll dough around and coat completely.  Do not shake off excess.  Place coated dough on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake for 12 minutes.  Cool on wire rack.  Makes about 36 cookies.