Lemon Snowballs

When the summer heats up, there's nothing better than a fresh-baked batch of  lemon snowballs.  These delicious lemony cookies covered in confectioners sugar "snow" will make you forget that it's 95 F outside.

While the oven is preheating (and simultaneously heating your kitchen to scorching temperatures, all worth it, I can assure you) start the cookies.  Zest and juice the lemons.  I find a lemon reamer to be best for the juicing and a microplane ("helpfully"not pictured) for the zesting.

Chop the nuts fine; I used walnuts, but pecans would be great, too. You could use a food processor, but I did it old school, with a knife.

The batter will look curdled at the beginning, but soldier on.

Form the dough into ball the size of a "SMALL walnut" instructs the vintage recipe card.

This is best accomplished by dipping your hands in flour.

Bake until light brown on the bottom (but barely colored on top).  You can use a small spatula to lift the cookies to peek.

As soon as they're out of the oven, roll them in confectioners sugar.

Put them on a rack to set.  Or a plate would be fine.

And for those of you who have read to the end, here's a real snowball (three, actually) saved in our freezer from the NYC Blizzard of 1996.