Chocolate Italian Meatball Cookies The Chocolate Italian Meatball Cookie is a quintessential Christmas cookie! The meatball cookie is ‘the cookie’ that harks back to Christmases of yesteryear. For us, the meatball cookie was to Christmas what turkey is to Thanksgiving and colored eggs are to Easter.
Cookie:
1½ cups sugar
1¼ cups butter flavored shortening*
3 eggs
5 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
1 Tblsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
5 cups All-Purpose flour
1 Tblsp Allspice
1 Tblsp ground nutmeg
¾ cup Hershey cocoa
1½ cups chopped walnuts
1½ cups chocolate chips
1 cup powdered sugar
Glaze
½ tsp vanilla
Holiday colored sprinkles (Opt;)
2 Tblsp milk
*Regular shortening is fine
Preheat oven to 350 F.
In a large mixing bowl cream sugar and shortening.
Add eggs one at a time, slowly mixing after each addition.
Add milk and vanilla and mix again.
Add dry ingredients. Mix well.
Add nuts and chocolate chips and mix.
Roll the dough into smaller meatball sized balls (or use a small ice cream scoop).
Place on parchment lined cookie sheets. 12 per sheet.
Bake for 13 - 15 minutes.
Cool on racks.
In the meantime prepare glaze.
In a small bowl combine powdered sugar, milk and vanilla.
When cookies are cool, dunk in glaze and place them back on racks.
Sprinkle with colored sprinkles and let dry.
Not only are these delicious, they’re addicting! Now here’s the thing about this recipe…I didn’t add cloves. If you’re a fan of the clove flavor in the traditional cookie – by all means, add it. I also used shortening versus butter to give it more of the lift that you want in a meatball cookie. These meatball cookies puff up perfectly and maintain a tender crumb all the way through to the last bite. And the chocolate? It’s in there, in the form of cocoa and chocolate chips.