Coconut Snowballs

After I received a nice big packet of dessicated coconut from Sugar and Crumbs recently (see my review here), I knew I wanted to make something festive where I could use the coconut to create snow effect. I remembered seeing this recipe for snowballs in an issue of Baked & Delicious magazine earlier in the year. For some reason this didn't make it onto my to do list, not entirely sure why because these actually turned out to be really good. I added some cinnamon to the recipe because I love it and after all it is nearly Christmas, not that I really need to use that as an excuse to add cinnamon to my baking. The original recipe advised sandwiching the snowballs together with icing but instead I've left them as individuals so they are a bit smaller but I think this works quite nicely to serve as nibbles with drinks. I also used a lot more coconut than the original recipe to give them all a good covering and to make them look a bit more like snowballs. Apparently this recipe is popular in Scotland, I've only ever visited Scotland once and didn't have any of these but perhaps some of my Celtic readers can enlighten me.

Ingredients - makes 16 (recipe adapted from Baked & Delicious issue 26)

125g plain flour
125g self raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
75g caster sugar
1tsp ground cinnamon
75g unsalted butter, diced
1 egg
1 egg yolk
150g icing sugar
200g dessicated coconut

• Preheat the oven to 200C. Add both flours, sugar, cinnamon and salt to a mixing bowl and briefly stir together then add the cubed butter and rub into the flour with your fingertips until you get a breadcrumb texture. Next add the egg and the egg yolk and stir everything together, then use your hands to bring it all together into a dough.
• Knead lightly on a lightly floured work top until the dough is smooth. Divide into 16 walnut sized pieces and roll each one into a ball and place on a non stick baking tray. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden and firm, the balls will spread a little whilst baking.  Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool.
• Make the icing using a little bit of water, you want to get the icing just runny enough so that you can dip the balls in and cover them with a thin layer of icing. Add the water a few drops at a time until you're happy with the consistency. 
• Spread the coconut onto a plate and then one by one dip the balls in the icing until they are completely covered and then roll them in the coconut so they are completely coated in coconut. Leave to set for half an hour to give the icing chance to dry before serving. 

I'm entering these into Alphabakes hosted by Ros this month and Caroline where the letter this month is 'S'