The Perfect Newfoundland Snowballs Recipe
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Newfoundland Snowballs. The most searched for Newfoundland recipe on RockRecipes.com. Soft chocolate fudge balls with the goodness of oatmeal and coconut.
UPDATE: Here is a revisit of Newfoundland Snowballs, one of the most popular recipes ever featured on Rock Recipes and one of the earliest. This iconic Newfoundland treat is among the most searched Newfoundland recipes on the internet.
Many folks tell me this recipe is how they discovered my website in the first place.
This recipe came from my Nan, Belinda Morgan of Port-de-Grave, Newfoundland and has been made in our family for over 50 years.
I have sampled these all over the province and have never yet found any as good as her soft, fudgy version.
It is and will always be for me, the perfect and most authentic Newfoundland snowball recipe.
Originally Published on November 7, 2007.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas we will be featuring some family favourites for holiday baking. One of the most popular treats anytime but particularly at Christmas is the Snowball.
Newfoundland Snowballs, an iconic local recipe.
This recipe is virtually a Newfoundland icon. You would be hard pressed to find anyone who has spent any time in this province and has not sampled a Snowball.
More a confection than a cookie, a proper snowball should be soft, fudgy and slightly chewy. Many people find this recipe to be a bit of a challenge but if you follow the method closely and are precise in your measurements, you should have no problems.
Some crucial tips for success.
Key to the success of this recipe is the length of time that the base of the recipe is boiled. More precisely, it is the temperature that the mixture reaches when boiling that is critical.
Much akin to making fudge, you are looking for the mixture to reach soft ball stage or near soft ball stage on a candy thermometer. Use one if you have it but if not, the five minutes gentle boiling as directed in the recipe is a pretty dependable guideline.
It is also very important not to stir the mixture as it boils or you risk the sugar crystallizing and leaving you with a hard, crumbly finished product. I've added the two very short videos below to demonstrate what each stage of preparation will look like.
Don't worry, chill out!
Chilling the snowball mixture well is also very important. Many people start adding more coconut and/or oats to the recipe when they see how soupy the mixture is when it is hot. That is a mistake to be avoided.
Once chilled the mixture will be easy to scoop and roll into balls. This will take several hours or overnight as is mentioned in the recipe instructions below.
Looking for more Newfoundland inspired desserts?
Be sure to check out our Best Newfoundland Christmas Cookies Collection. They are definitely worth making at any time of year!
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The Perfect Newfoundland Snowballs Recipe
Newfoundland Snowballs - the most searched for Newfoundland recipe on RockRecipes.com. Soft chocolate fudge balls with the goodness of oatmeal and coconut. These freeze exceptionally well and my kids actually prefer to eat them frozen, just like I did as a child.
Ingredients
- 3 cups sugar
- ¾ cup melted butter
- 1 ¼ cups milk
- 3 cups large rolled oats
- 1 cup unsweetened fine coconut
- 12 tablespoon cocoa
- 1 ½ cups extra coconut extra coconut to roll the balls, approximately
Instructions
- In a large saucepan, combine the sugar, butter and milk. This mixture will foam up while boiling so a larger pot is recommended.)
- Boil together gently over medium heat for 5-6 minutes or until mixture reaches about 225 -230 degrees F on a candy thermometer. (The 5 to 6 minutes cooking time is usually quite accurate for me but don't start timing it until the mixture is fully at a rolling boil and don't stir the mixture while it boils.) For the record, my latest batch took exactly 6 minutes at a rolling boil and it was perfect.
- Mix together the oats, 1 cup coconut and cocoa.
- Add the boiled mixture to the dry ingredients until well combined and chill well in the fridge, until mixture is able to be shaped into 1 ½ inch balls. The mixture will be quite soft and sloppy while it is still hot. It will not firm up until it is very well chilled.
- In updating this recipe I prepared a batch and let it cool down to almost room temperature before covering the bowl and refrigerating overnight. The next day, as can be seen in one of the photos above, the mixture was very easy to scoop and roll into balls.
- Roll the balls in additional coconut.
- Makes about 4 dozen. These should ALWAYS be stored in the fridge to maintain the soft yet slightly chewy texture. They tend to be too soft at room temperature.
- These freeze very well (my kids eat them frozen all the time, just like my siblings and I did as kids)
Notes
- To prevent your snowballs from hardening, (the sugar crystallizing) it is important not to take the mixture over the desired temperature. A heavy bottom pot is best, so as not to conduct the heat too quickly.
- Also, some people ask about a rolling boil. To me, that is a gentle boil, using only just enough heat to make the mixture slowly and constantly bubble and be foamy.
- Of course both your pot and your own stove have to be taken into consideration. While the recipe says medium heat, your stove/pot combination might need medium low for example to maintain a gentle boil.
- The most important thing is not to have the heat too high for YOUR specific equipment.
- The 2 hour total time for preparation is an estimate and includes chilling time before the snowballs are rolled in the coconut.
- It is not recommended to double this recipe, as the boiling time will not be long enough. You can use a candy thermometer though when doubling the recipe. Hope this was helpful, B.
Nutrition Information
Yield
48Serving Size
gAmount Per Serving Calories 129Saturated Fat 4gCholesterol 8mgSodium 30mgCarbohydrates 18gFiber 1gSugar 13gProtein 1g
My husband only liked his mothers snowballs and no one could make them as good as hers until I made your snow ball recipe and now he chooses these snowballs over his mothers. He calls the "YUMMY"
Hey, what can I say, I'm good! LOL!;) Really glad he enjoyed them. My mission to banish bad snowballs marches on!
I'm gonna make these tonight but I'm gonna add a 375ml of George st. Spiced rum to it. Should I still follow the recipe as is?tks
No. The rum would have to replace the milk in part at least. That would be a recipe for snowball soup!
Thank you so much for posting this recipe! I'm a Newfie living in Georgia and wanted to bring something different to my office party cookie exchange. I remembered snowballs but not the recipe, so went online and found yours. I made these last night, and as I type, my coworkers are raving about them.
Your other recipes look so great, I can't wait to try more!
Do you happen to have a recipe for Newfoundland dressing?
Thank you again!
U mean Newfoundland stuffing. Lol..
Plwnty of people, including my family call it dressing.
Dressing it is, stuffing is off the Island & in the US. 🙂 Snowballs to die for. Thank you for all the posts.
Love your snowball recipe and so do my adult kids
I just tried making a batch of these. Right now I have a soupy bowl of chocolate sauce and tough/hard oats. I used "large" oats as the recipe indicated - which are also called old-fashioned (Mine are Quaker Large). Should I have used quick oats? Or - will this eventually turn into the snowballs that I have been craving?
Hi Robin,
It is normal for the mixture to be a little soupy before it cools. Hope they turned out well in the end. Barry.
What are large oats, instant or the ones that take longer to cook
when boiling the first three ingredients,will u stir before it boils or will sugar stick to bottom of pot.thanks Rose.
Hi Rose,
It is advisable NOT to stir these ingredients as they boil. This can cause the sugar to crystalize and ruin the proper fudgy texture of these snowballs. If these turn out hard, you've done something wrong.
Those are not Snowballs. Snowballs have a creamy marshmallow center with a chocolaty coconut shell. So yum.
The above cookies are called coconut balls. My mom made them for me every Christmas in Hampden Bay NFLD 🙂
Do you have the receipe for snow balls you mentioned
You scrolled past the recipe to get to the comments.
Could you please clarify the amount of butter in the Newfoundland Snowball recipe.
Is it 34 cup butter, melted OR 3/4 cup melted butter, and if so could you please advise how much butter you started with to get 3/4 cup melted to save me from melting and measuring.
Thanks.
They are the same.
@Jackie, many parts of the island call these snowballs rather than the covered marshmallows. Springdale and Embree and Lewisporte are places I’ve lived and had these snowballs.
Oh Jackie, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet! 😉
I never quibble about the names if these things. It is a silly exercise to try and convince someone that something they've known by one name their entire life is really something else! I'm sure there are other names for them; just as I am sure that there are many, many thousands of Newfoundlanders outside of your Mom's kitchen in Hampden Bay who have always known these as Snowballs.
The Snowballs you speak of are a commercial English confection anyway and not a cookie; this recipe an attempt to recreate that candy.
Call them coconut balls if you want but leave others to call them as they please as well. There is no right and wrong here, only good taste! 😉
In Musgrave Hr. They call them 'Fiddle Diddle's' lol, they have many names!
I'm from St. John's and this is the exact recipe I use and we call them "snowballs".
So no different then? LOL! I have some in my freezer right now. Snowballs are breakfast food...right?
Fiddle Diddles is what my best friend called them in Aspen Cove. I lived in Ladle Cove and we called them Snowballs. Interesting how each community has different names for popular NL recipes. I am about to make these right now for dessert, after we have Fish and Brewis and Shrunchins. We have lived in Nova Scotia for over 18 years but there's still no place like home and no food like home. This will be the first time that our friends taste Fish and Brewis. They are also looking forward to the Snowballs 🙂
Never heard Fiddle Diddles before! That's a new one.
We called them fiddle Diddles too - my family is from Musgrave Harbour and Ladle Cove. My dad used to make them when we were kids. This was my first attempt and I am very happy with it! This recipe is perfect! I cheated and didn't chill them completely. I just put the ceramic bowl I. A ice water bath in the sink. Some of them spread a little. I put them in the freezer for a few minutes and then reshaped them. I just didn't want to wait... I wanted to eat them immediately lol Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Hi! Can these be frozen?
YES! !n fact they freeze quite well and I am not a big fan of freezing anything.
I can't count the number of these fudgy morsels my siblings and I pinched from my Mom's basement freezer when we were kids. 😉
Hi love the recipe and they were very.fudgey when I made them first but got a little dryer after couple of days in the fridge.Is this normal?
They normally stay pretty pudgy. You might have gotten the sugar just a tad close to the edge of too hot. Did you freeze them? That usually helps preserve the chewy texture a lot.
We call them snowballs, always have....from Botwood NL...and the ones with marshmallow in the middle, we call them marshmallow snowballs 🙂 both delicious... some people call them by lots of names...either name is fine.... no right or worng....just delicious!!!
Tammy
This year for Christmas, I wanted to make snowballs for the first time -- and no matter where I looked, I could not find the recipe. I made the recipe that my mother gave me - knowing it wasn't what I was looking for - with just OK results. So into google I pop the phrase - Newfoundland Snowball cookies -- and this is where I end up! And just by the picture alone, I know these are the cookies I am trying so hard to prepare! Guess I'm cookie making again this afternoon - thanks for posting the recipe.
Pen
You're very welcome, Pen. This continues to be one of the most popular recipes in this site and one of the most searched Newfoundland recipes on Google.
My coworkers were driving me crazy this afternoon, begging me to bring them a treat for break time tomorrow, but with a busy schedule and no time to shop, this was the perfect solution. They turned out perfectly, and I even had enough left to treat my husband.
Thanks for another great recipe!