December 20, 2017 35 Comments

Russian Tea Cakes Cookie Recipe

Name: Russian Tea Cakes
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 27 min
Ingredients: ½ cup powdered sugar, (plus 2 cups for rolling the cookies); 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 cup unsalted butter, (room temperature); 1 teaspoon vanilla extract; ¾ cup finely grated pecans, (measured after grating (see notes))

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Russian Tea Cakes ~ also known as Mexican Wedding Cookies, Snowballs, or just plain Tea Cakes, are easy to make, crunchy sugar-dusted nut balls that are not too sweet, and melt-in-your mouth delicious!

This recipe, and these cookies, bring a flood of happy memories to mind. Even the smell of them baking triggers vivid thoughts of my mom and the years when our own children were small. I’ve been making these cookies since I was a young girl, and given that I’m a grandmother now, that’s been a while.

I still have my mom’s original typed recipe that I keep in a plastic sleeve. As you can tell, this recipe is very old and barely held together with tape. I work from a photocopy now so it won’t deteriorate any more. This recipe for Russian Tea Cakes has been well loved for a very long time. The description reads “crunchy, sugar-dusted nut balls” and that pretty much says it all.

These are hands-down, without a doubt, my husband’s favorite cookie that I bake for the holidays.

The ingredients are simple, and I believe that’s why these are so good. I’m often baffled how recipes using the same list of ingredients can turn out so different, but they do! The science of baking is fascinating. For these Russian Tea Cakes, all you need is flour, powdered sugar, vanilla, pecans, and butter.

I’ve perfected these cookies over the years and added all my little tweaks and tricks to the notes section of the recipe card.

We’ve always used pecans as our nut of choice, and instead of chopping, I grate the nuts for a very fine, powdery consistency. If you ask me, grating the nuts is the secret to making these a terrific melt-in-your mouth cookie.

Can you freeze Russian Tea Cakes?

Absolutely! These cookies freeze well and keep for up to a week at room temperature. Stored in a cool, dry location, they last even a little longer.

The cookies don’t dramatically change their shape when baked, nor do they need to get overly brown on top.

If they are browned on top, they’re probably over-baked. Check the bottom of a cookie for a light brown color and try to make them ‘bite sized’ to prevent a sugar mess on the front of your shirt. Just saying!

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