Pecan Butter Balls - cooking recipe

Ingredients

2 cups sifted flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups pecans, finely chopped, divided

Preparation

If you prefer, you can substitute the pecans with walnuts, almonds, or filberts. I prefer the pecans to give this cookie a bit of sweetness.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit; high elevation use convection if you can; or bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
Sift flour (very important to do this for lighter cookies), sugar, and salt in medium to large bowl.
Cut up butter into workable pieces, add to flour, and add vanilla.
Mix as if you were making a pie crust; should look like beads or pea size. Use hand or sturdy spoon to mix well enough to form dough ball.
Add and work in 2 cups of the nuts.
Shape into 1-inch balls. You can refrigerate dough for about an hour if you think it will be easier to work with; I have not needed to.
Roll balls in the remaining 1 cup nuts.
Bake on ungreased cookie sheets for about 25 minutes; may take 5 extra minutes, depending on the elevation.
You can remove them right away to a wire rack to cool.
You can use this same recipe for Wedding Cookies, just omit the 1 cup nuts for rolling and roll in powdered sugar instead. Bake the same amount of time.