By December. Christmas month. The kitchen shifts into its annual production mode: candy, cookies, biscuits, the slow accumulation of holiday food that fills the counter and the pantry and the house with the smell of cinnamon and sorghum and the specific warmth of a kitchen working at capacity for someone other than itself.
This year Clay is part of the production. He made sorghum cookies on Saturday — Betty's recipe, which he learned at Evarts in October. His first solo batch. Eighty-eight percent. The cookies spread a little too much (dough was too warm when it went in — he needs to chill it longer) but the flavor was right: warm, spiced, sorghum-dark, December. He made two batches. One for us. One for the Thursday group, because Clay brings food to the veterans' group now — every Thursday, something from the kitchen, a plate of cookies or a loaf of cornbread or a pan of brownies. He feeds the group the way I feed the family: with his hands, his time, his refusal to let people go hungry when he has a kitchen and a recipe and the ability to produce warmth.
I made bourbon balls. The Kentucky Christmas staple. Vanilla wafer crumbs, powdered sugar, cocoa, pecans, corn syrup, bourbon. The bourbon is still the only alcohol in the house, used exclusively for cooking, and the bourbon balls are the annual exception to the everything-else-is-ginger-ale rule. Cooking bourbon is not drinking bourbon. The heat transforms the alcohol into flavor, which is what heat does to everything — transforms it from what it was into what it can be. Bourbon to flavor. Sugar to caramel. Clay to cook. The transformations are all the same. Heat and time and the refusal to stay what you were.
Betty's candy tins arrived via Dale. Brittle, fudge, divinity, coconut bonbons. The annual delivery. The coffee cans wrapped in newspaper and tied with string, unchanged since 1960, the same packaging that Betty has used for sixty years because Betty doesn't innovate on packaging — she innovates on flavor and lets the newspaper do the aesthetic work. I opened the tin and the smell of Betty's kitchen poured out like a genie from a lamp, and for a second I was in Evarts, in December, in the kitchen with the coal stove and the linoleum and the mountain outside the window. The candy is a time machine. The candy has always been a time machine.
When Dale delivered Betty’s coffee can and I pulled out those coconut bonbons — rolled smooth, dusted white, tasting like someone’s December kitchen — I wanted to make something that belonged in a tin alongside them. These pineapple coconut snowballs are that kind of candy: the sort you roll out by the dozen, stack in a tin lined with wax paper, and carry to the people you feed. Clay takes cookies to the Thursday group. Betty sends brittle through the mail. The form changes. The impulse doesn’t.
Pineapple Coconut Snowballs
Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes (includes chilling) | Servings: 24 snowballs
Ingredients
- 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 can (8 oz) crushed pineapple, well drained
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups sweetened shredded coconut, divided
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Drain the pineapple. Press the crushed pineapple through a fine mesh strainer or squeeze it in a clean kitchen towel until as much liquid as possible is removed. Excess moisture will prevent the balls from holding their shape.
- Mix the filling. In a medium bowl, beat the softened cream cheese and powdered sugar together until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the drained pineapple, vanilla extract, and salt. Stir in 1 cup of the shredded coconut and mix until fully combined.
- Chill the mixture. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or until the mixture is firm enough to roll. This step is essential — do not skip it.
- Roll the snowballs. Spread the remaining 1 cup of shredded coconut on a shallow plate. Scoop rounded tablespoons of the chilled mixture and roll each portion between your palms into a smooth ball. Roll immediately in the coconut, pressing gently so it adheres on all sides.
- Set and store. Place finished snowballs on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving to help them firm up. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or layer in a tin between sheets of wax paper.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 78 | Protein: 1g | Fat: 5g | Carbs: 8g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 55mg