Mocha Butter Balls

Ingredients

• •1/2 preparedBasic Butter Cookie Dough at room temperature
• •1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
• •2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
• •1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans, if desired
• •about 2 cups confectioners' sugar

Steps

1. 1Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. 2In bowl of a standing electric mixer beat together all ingredients except confectioners' sugar until just combined well. Form dough into 1-inch balls and arrange about 3/4 inch apart on baking sheets.
3. 3Bake cookies in batches in middle of oven until just firm and beginning to brown, about 18 minutes, and cool on baking sheets 5 minutes.
4. 4Sift confectioners' sugar into a bowl. After the 5 minutes cooling, toss balls, a few at a time, in confectioners' sugar, coating them well and transferring them as coated to trays to cool completely. (Before balls are stored or frozen, they can be coated lightly again in confectioners' sugar to keep them from sticking to each other.) Cookies may be stored between layers of wax paper in airtight containers up to 6 weeks frozen.