Gluten Free Chai Spiced Snowball Christmas Cookies -- The Ones That Belong to Both Holidays

December and Portland has turned on the lights — literally. The city sparkles with holiday decorations, the trees along the park blocks wrapped in white lights, the shops on Hawthorne and Division strung with garlands. I took Miya to see the tree at Pioneer Courthouse Square and she stared at the lights with her mouth open, which is her expression for wonder, and wonder is the only appropriate response to a fifty-foot tree covered in ten thousand lights in the middle of a rainy city.

I am not a Christmas person by nature. Growing up in a half-Japanese household, Christmas was always a negotiation — Mom wanted the full American production (tree, stockings, carols, cookies) and Dad wanted to acknowledge the day with minimal fuss and move on to New Year's, which is the real holiday in Japanese culture. I split the difference the way I split everything: participating in both, belonging fully to neither. Now I am married to an Irish Catholic, which means Christmas is not optional. Brian's family does Christmas the way they do everything: loudly, enthusiastically, with more food and more alcohol than any reasonable calculation would suggest.

I made Christmas cookies this week — not because I wanted to, but because Miya is nine months old and this is her first Christmas and I want her to have the memory of cookies, even if the memory will be abstract and sugar-coated and completely constructed by me. I made matcha shortbread — green tea powder in the dough, cut into circles, dusted with powdered sugar. They are Japanese and Christmas at the same time, which is what I am and what Miya is and what this family is. Green cookies. Improbable and beautiful.

I also made Fumiko's kuromame — sweet black soybeans, which are traditionally a New Year's food but which I start simmering in December because they take three days to prepare properly. You soak the beans overnight, then simmer them gently with sugar and soy sauce and a rusty nail (yes, a nail — the iron keeps the beans black and glossy). The apartment smells like sweet soy for three days. Brian finds this bewildering. I find it sacred. The kuromame are Fumiko's, and making them in December is my way of pulling New Year's closer, of bridging the gap between Brian's Christmas and my January, of insisting that both holidays fit in the same kitchen.

This apartment is too small for all of this — for the tree Brian insists on, the kuromame I insist on, the baby who insists on touching everything. It is too small and it is exactly right. Smallness forces intimacy. Intimacy forces compromise. Compromise is what marriage is. I think.

The matcha shortbread I wrote about above are mine —mine and Miya’s —but if you don’t have matcha powder on hand or you want something that leans a little more into the warmth of the season, these Gluten Free Chai Spiced Snowball Christmas Cookies are the recipe I reach for next. Like my green shortbread circles, they are dusted in powdered sugar and built on the same buttery, crumbly shortbread logic; the chai spice just swaps one kind of complexity for another. They fit in the same tin, they disappear at the same rate, and they remind me that “Christmas cookie” is a category wide enough to hold anything you bring to it.

Gluten Free Chai Spiced Snowball Christmas Cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 14 minutes | Total Time: 34 minutes (plus 30 minutes chilling) | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar, plus 1 cup more for rolling
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups almond flour, packed
• 1/2 cup tapioca starch (or arrowroot starch)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 3/4 cup finely chopped pecans or walnuts (optional but recommended)

Instructions

1. Make the chai spice blend. In a small bowl, whisk together the cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, and black pepper. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar. Using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2–3 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and mix to combine.
3. Add dry ingredients. Add the almond flour, tapioca starch, chai spice blend, and salt to the butter mixture. Mix on low speed until a soft dough forms. Fold in the chopped nuts if using. The dough will be slightly sticky.
4. Chill the dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. This firms the dough and makes rolling much easier.
5. Preheat oven. Arrange racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350°F (175°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
6. Shape cookies. Scoop the chilled dough by the tablespoon and roll each portion between your palms into a smooth 1-inch ball. Place 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets.
7. Bake. Bake for 12–14 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through, until the bottoms are just lightly golden and the tops look dry and set. Do not overbake —they will firm up as they cool.
8. First powdered sugar coating. Place the remaining 1 cup powdered sugar in a shallow bowl. While the cookies are still warm (but not hot —about 5 minutes out of the oven), gently roll each one in the powdered sugar until fully coated. Set on a wire rack to cool completely.
9. Second coating. Once the cookies are fully cooled, roll them in powdered sugar a second time for a thick, snowy finish. Tap off any excess.
10. Store. Keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to 2 months.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 148 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 9g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 28mg