• Home
    • About
      • Home
      • About the Site
      • The Authors
      • Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
      • Email me
    • Reviews
      • List of All Reviews
      • Best of Portland by year
        • Reader Survey: Best of Portland Food 2017
        • Best of Portland 2015
      • Steakhouse Roundup
        • Steakhouse Reviews Introduction
        • El Gaucho Steakhouse
        • Morton’s Steakhouse
        • Ringside Steakhouse
        • Ruth’s Chris
        • Steakhouse – Results
      • Product/Business Reviews
        • Retailer Reviews
        • Product Reviews
    • Topics
      • Food Writing
        • Alcohol Related
          • Beer
          • Wine
          • Spirits
        • April Fools Stories For Portland
        • Contests and Competition
        • Food Memories
        • Travel Writing
      • Authors / Book Reviews
      • Cheese information
      • Interviews: Honest dialog with people in the Portland food industry
      • Portland Food and Restaurant News and Discussion
      • Recipes
    • Guides
      • Guide to Portland coffee
        • Portland Coffee Guide
        • A Map of our favorite Portland coffeehouses
        • Reader Survey: Best Coffeehouses in Portland 2017
      • Guide to Local Wine Shops
      • Guide to Portland Bakeries
      • Guide to Portland Distilleries
      • Guide to Portland’s Beer Shops
    Portland Food and Drink

    Portland Food and Drink

    Restaurant News and Information For Portland Oregon Area Restaurants and Bars

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Send me email!

    White Pecan Balls

    By Nancy Rommelmann Last Update July 27, 2017 5 Comments

    Making butterI have always been the baker; I baked jam tarts for my dollies; I baked cookies for my brother and his friends when they were teenagers and had the munchies; I bake everyone their birthday cake and was given a plaque from my daughter’s grade school for baking every month for seven years.

    You might surmise this is compulsion is borne of generosity; perhaps, but it is also selfishness, for when you are the baker, you are beloved. You also always know what to bring. Years ago, when entering a party with a friend, I mentioned I felt uncomfortable.

    “That’s ‘cuz you’re not carrying a pie,” she cracked. Ah, dessert as emissary: even if I were dull, my cherry cobbler would not be.

    And so when I met my husband, eight years ago, I assumed he, like all the men before him, would be wowed by my sweets. Had I been proposed to by not one but two men after feeding them warm slabs of apple-sour cream walnut-crunch pie? I had.

    “It’s good,” said Din, working through a slice of pecan. “Except the crust.”

    What did he mean? What was wrong with my crust?

    “Well, it’s not flaky like my grandmother’s,” he said, whereupon I proceeded to get the recipe from his mother, a “neither human hands nor machine this crust shall touch!” production, a wreckage of Crisco and flour that turned the kitchen to nuclear winter and went into the pan, when it went in at all, in 699 shreds. Yeah, it was flaky; and yes, my atavistic wife gene bid me keep making it, until this year, when I said, you know what? It’s not that good, and went back to my old crust.

    What I do make for Din is his favorite cookie, another family recipe, for pecan balls.
    “As you can see,” his mom wrote on the recipe card, “these require great skill!” They’re actually a counterbalance to the crust, idiotically easy, and seem to be an especial hit with men: several Christmases ago, our best buddy Dario, in the midst of gorging, shouted, “I can’t stop eating these white balls!” Hence, the name

    White Balls

    • 1 cup butter
    • 1/4 cup white sugar
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla
    • 2 cups flour
    • 2 1/2 cups pecans, rough chopped

    Confectioner’s sugar (for rolling)

    Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix butter and white sugar in electric mixer, add vanilla, then flour and pecans, taking care not to break up nuts too much. Press into balls about the size of an egg yolk. Bake 40 minutes, or until they have just taken on a hint of color. Remove cookies from pan, and roll in confectioner’s sugar while still hot.

    Related

    Category: Food Writing, Recipes.

    Previous Post: « Memorable Food for 2005
    Next Post: Review: Simpatica Dining Hall »

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. mczlaw says

      January 3, 2006 at 10:27 am

      You know there’s some bad taste humor here with the “white balls” name, but I’m not going to be the first to play with it.

      Seriously, with all that butter and sugar, how could you go wrong?

      –mcz

      Reply
    2. Dave J. says

      January 3, 2006 at 11:47 am

      Nice, Nancy. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person reminded of that classic Saturday Night Live skit with Alec Baldwin as Dave Schweddy, the guy on NPR talking about the delicious “Schweddy Balls” he makes for the holidays.

      Your recipe was just another reminder of why I love this time of year–all the recipes have the quantity of butter listed as sticks or pounds, not tablespoons. How can you go wrong, indeed.

      Reply
    3. jo says

      January 3, 2006 at 5:36 pm

      I do believe that your White Balls would make a delightful companion to my Chocolate Salty Balls – my own adaptation/imagining of Chef’s (from South Park) recipe. Deeelicious.

      Reply
    4. Pork Cop says

      January 4, 2006 at 1:12 am

      European-American balls is less offensive.

      Reply

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

    © 2023 · PortlandFoodandDrink.com • See Terms of Service and Privacy Policy