Russian Tea Cakes
I’d never had these cookies around the holidays before, but while searching the Internet for Christmas baking inspiration, they kept popping up under various names. Mexican wedding cakes, snow balls, Russian tea cakes, etc. so I thought I would give them a shot.
The emphasis of the flavor, I read, was to be on the quality of the nuts and the vanilla. I kind of wished that I had used a stronger flavored nut than almond, but I made sure to double up on the vanilla to make sure that it popped. As much as vanilla can really pop, anyway.
They’re very dry and not particularly sweet, which I suppose makes them perfect as tea cakes, like their name suggests. Of all the things in my freezer at the moment though, I haven’t found myself reaching in to grab any. Maybe that’s because they’re hidden under the Linzer cookies though!
- 2/3 cup (65g) pecans, walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts, toasted and ground (I used almonds, but walnuts are more traditional and less subtle)
- 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 vanilla bean, split and seeded
- 2 cups (260g) all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup icing sugar
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- If you are toasting the nuts from fresh, place them on a baking sheet and bake until lightly brown and fragrant, about 10 minutes. Allow to cool, place them and part of the flour (to prevent the oils from releasing and forming a paste) into a food processor and pulse until finely ground.
- Beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and ribbony, then add the vanilla extract and the scrapings from the vanilla bean. Add the flour and salt to form a slightly sticky dough, then cover and place in the refrigerator for half an hour to firm up.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow to warm up until pliable, then form into 1″ balls. Place them several inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake until lightly brown around the edges, about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
- To finish, and to make them actually look like snowballs, divide the icing sugar between a plate and a fine sieve. Press each snowball into the icing sugar on the plate and then dust with the sugar from the sieve. Alternatively, just roll the balls in the icing sugar, though I find it harder to get it to stick to them rather than your hand after a while.
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