Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Russian Tea Cake Snowball Cookie Things!

Still no stockings. Today was spent running around gathering materials for our church's advent wreath, my own advent wreath, a ton of grocery shopping to catch up on, an oil change, a gas fill-up, a visit to church to make copies, the baking and baking of Russian Tea Cakes for a cookie exchange tomorrow ... and a partridge in a pear tree.

Falalalalala!

So, in the generous spirit of Christmas and the season to be merry, I am posting the recipe I grew up with for Russian Tea Cakes. Only we referred to them as "Snowballs", stuck an M&M inside, and left out the pecans. So really, maybe they are "Not-So-Russian-Tea-Cakes". 

What they ARE is delicious little cakes covered in powdered sugar. Yummy. Here's the recipe, friends!

You will need:
1 cup butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour (sifted)
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)
M&Ms


Mix butter and sugar until creamy. Mmmm. Add remaining ingredients and blend. Mmmm.

Grab a teaspoon-ish size of dough and press an M&M in the middle. Please notice I used more than the required amount of dough. It was late and I was tired and opted for fewer bigger cookies than a million marble-sized cookies.

Roll dough with M&M into a ball and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes.



Once baked cookies are slightly cool, roll in powdered sugar. Ta-Da! That's it. Here are mine, neatly assembled on a platter from Russia, ironically. :)

Happy Eating!! :)

5 comments:

  1. Katie, I've got to know--is there any particular reason you chose the whisk attachment on the mixer?

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  2. Are these cookies similar to Mexican furrballs? Well, that's what we called them. They might have been Mexican Wedding Cookies.
    And I was also wondering why you chose the whisk instead of the bread/cake thingy.
    Enjoy your cookie exchange.

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  3. Ha ha---very perceptive readers!! Do you want to know my highly scientific reason for choosing the whisk? Here it goes!! Because it was already attached. At 9:00pm. When the baking started. :) I DO have the other attachment and I DO employ it (usually) as needed, but last night? It was lucky that I had enough competency to pull out the Kitchen Aid instead of the toaster. It could have been that bad.

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  4. Thanks for the recipe! I'm going to try these this week!

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  5. Um....please send me some. These ARE award winning cookies, after all....! ;)

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