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These Russian tea cakes are classic Christmas cookie favorite of my childhood. You may also know these as Mexican Wedding cookies or Snowball cookies. This Russian Tea Cakes recipe is simple to make and buttery delicious!
‘Tis the season for cookies! And lots of them! This time of year, I can usually be found covered in flour and confectioner sugar. Mainly due to these cookies.
If you are unfamiliar with Russian Tea cakes (the name I grew up with) perhaps you know them by another, Mexican Wedding Cookies, or butterballs, or snowball cookies. I’m sure you can see why they are called snowball cookies.
I grew up on these cookies. And they were always a favorite of mine. Usually my dad and I were fighting over these cookies on the cookie tray. My grandmother made them every Christmas, so they are near and dear to my heart. Unforunately, her original recipe has been lost. However, I think this is a pretty close second.
Are Russian Tea Cakes the same as Mexican Wedding Cookies?
They sure are. Or snowball cookies. These are buttery shortbread like cookie, with pecans stirred in, and then they are rolled in powdered sugar (twice!) for a buttery delicious cookie.
Ingredients needed for Russian Tea Cakes
- Unsalted Butter – I always recommend unsalted butter so you can control the amount of salt in the cookie dough.
- Powdered Sugar – You will use this in your cookie dough and also again to roll them in after they are baked.
- Vanilla extract – Pure is best! You can also make your own vanilla extract.
- Flour – All purpose flour here is all you need.
- Pecan (or you can use mini chocolate chips or another nut as well)
How To Make These Russian Tea Cakes
Step One: Cream the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract.
You want to cream the softened butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla together in your mixing bowl. I made this in my stand mixer but you could easily make this with a hand mixer.
Step Two: Stir in flour, pecans, and salt.
Then add in your all purpose flour, toasted chopped pecans, and salt. The dough will be very stiff.
Step Three: Scoop And Bake Your Cookies
Once your dough is made go ahead and scoop your cookies onto a prepared cookie sheet. I used a 1-inch cookie scoop to scoop these cookies.
Step Four: Roll Them In Powdered Sugar….Twice
The key to these cookies is rolling them in powdered sugar, twice. You want to roll them once while they are warm. And then once again when they are cool. The first roll the powdered sugar sort of melts onto the cookie. So the second coating will leave a nice layer of powdered sugar and thoroughly coat the cookies.
Tips For Making These Russian Tea Cakes
- Measure your flour correctly. Over-measuring you flour for these cookies will result in a very dense cookie. Here is a complete tutorial on how to measure your flour correctly. Or you can use a kitchen scale and weigh your ingredients by weight, which is has the best accuracy for baking.
- Soften your butter. You need softened butter to make this cookie dough so it incorporates into the dough easily. Here are 3 ways to quickly soften your butter.
- Watch that oven time. I have just one word of advice for these cookies. When baking these, watch the time. Ten minutes goes fast. I don’t know what your oven is like, so just put it on eight minutes and watch those last couple. You don’t want these to brown, and they will very quickly. Now is not the time to draw a bath, do your taxes, and tackle that pile of gifts that needs to be wrapped! Do that later, perhaps with a cookie or two? Just watch the powdered sugar on those taxes.
- Roll twice. In powdered sugar that is. I roll them once in powdered sugar as soon as they come out of the oven so it clings to the cookie. But it also can melt a little bit since they are warm. So once cooled, I roll them again in powdered sugar to make sure they are properly covered.
- Toast the pecans first. This helps to bring out the flavor of the nuts. Toast them on a baking sheet at 350oF for 7 to 10 minutes, stirring periodically. Then allow them to cool and chop them before adding them to your cookie dough.
- Substitute the pecans. If you want you can substitute the pecans for another type of nut, or use mini chocolate chips if you are trying to avoid a nut allergy.
More Christmas Cookie Recipes To Try
- M&M Christmas Cookies
- Raspberry Rugelach
- Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies
- M&M Christmas Cookies
- Chocolate Chip M&M Oatmeal Cookies
Tools Needed To Make These Russian Tea Cakes
- Quality Cookies Sheets Like These Ones That Won’t Warp or Burn Your Cookies
- Oven Thermometer
- Kitchen-Aid Mixer (you can make them by hand, but this stand mixer makes fast work of your dough!)
- Cookie Scoop
- silicon baking mat
- spatula
- cooling rack
- cookie spatula – this is my new favorite thing, what did I use before? Ugh, those poor cookies.
So whatever you decide to call them, just make sure you make them!
Russian Tea Cakes
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter softened
- 1/2 cup (57 g) powdered (or confectioners) sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups (270 g) all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup (86 g) finely chopped toasted pecans
- 1/4 teaspoon table salt
- Powdered Sugar for rolling in after baking
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400 degrees.
- Mix butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a bowl. Stir in flour, nuts, and salt until a soft dough forms.
- Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Place about 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake about 10 to 12 minutes until set about not brown. Remove from cookie sheet. Cool slightly on a wire rack.
- Roll warm cookies in powdered sugar. Cool on wire rack. Roll again powdered sugar when cool.
Notes
- Measure your flour correctly. Over-measuring you flour for these cookies will result in a very dense cookie. Here is a complete tutorial on how to measure your flour correctly. Or you can use a kitchen scale and weigh your ingredients by weight, which is has the best accuracy for baking.
- Soften your butter. You need softened butter to make this cookie dough so it incorporates into the dough easily. Here are 3 ways to quickly soften your butter.
- Watch that oven time. I have just one word of advice for these cookies. When baking these, watch the time. Ten minutes goes fast. I don't know what your oven is like, so just put it on eight minutes and watch those last couple. You don't want these to brown, and they will very quickly. Now is not the time to draw a bath, do your taxes, and tackle that pile of gifts that needs to be wrapped! Do that later, perhaps with a cookie or two? Just watch the powdered sugar on those taxes.
- Roll twice. In powdered sugar that is. I roll them once in powdered sugar as soon as they come out of the oven so it clings to the cookie. But it also can melt a little bit since they are warm. So once cooled, I roll them again in powdered sugar to make sure they are properly covered.
- Toast the pecans first. This helps to bring out the flavor of the nuts. Toast them on a baking sheet at 350oF for 7 to 10 minutes, stirring periodically. Then allow them to cool and chop them before adding them to your cookie dough.
- Substitute the pecans. If you want you can substitute the pecans for another type of nut, or use mini chocolate chips if you are trying to avoid a nut allergy.
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