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!! :)