“‘It is as if we had a day made to order, Mrs. Dr. Dear,’ said Susan complacently, as she feathered an orange-frosted cake with coconut. ‘I will try my hand at them new-fangled butterballs after breakfast and I will phone Carter Flagg every half-hour to make sure that he will not forget the ice-cream.’” -Anne of Ingleside, ch.xiv

Not surprisingly, butterballs are considered an old-fashioned treat these days. They are a baked shortbread cookie, shaped into balls, with a rich buttery flavour. There are also recipes for unbaked butter-ball cookies, including the Peanut Butter Balls found on the Tourism PEI website.

Like most drop cookies, butterballs are easy to make. They take longer than normal cookies because the raw cookie dough has to be chilled for several hours before baking. Chilling the cookie dough is the longest and most important part of the process if you want to make ball-shaped cookies. Refrigerating the dough for at least an hour helps the cookie dough firm up, so that the balls will hold their shape while they bake.

Gooey butterball batter with butter, salt, sugar, flour, chopped nuts and (in this version) chocolate crumbs

Butterballs all lined up and ready for the oven

Baked Butterballs

Sugar-dusted Butterballs

Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Icing sugar to coat cookies

Directions

1. Cream together butter and sugar
2. Add flour, salt, pecans and vanilla, and mix lightly
3. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour, preferably overnight
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
5. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. When dough is unused, keep refrigerated.
6. Place butterballs 1 inch apart on ugreased cookie sheet
7. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Be careful not to let the cookies melt or burn!
8. Roll cookies in icing sugar while they’re still warm. Let cool

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