russian tea cakes
I know that two days after Christmas, it’s impossible to be anything but cookie-d out, but I implore you to make room for just two more: one flawless recipe, and one baker’s trick that everyone should have in their repertoires.
The first is Russian Tea Cakes, also known as Mexican Wedding Cakes, also known as polvorones and, no doubt, dozens of other things. I just call them dreamy. Toasted nuts are ground into a fine powder — the Russian-style seems to call more often for hazelnuts, the Mexican ones typically demand pecans, but I’d argue you could use anything from walnuts to almonds (I bet those marcona ones would be dreamy) to Brazil or macadamia nuts — mixed into a fairly un-sweet butter cookie base, baked in little balls and then rolled, still warm in a cloud of powdered sugar, sometimes enhanced with a sprinkle of cinnamon. They melt in your mouth. They keep well for even two weeks, tasting better as they age. I think if I were a nut, and I suspect we know that I am, this is how I’d like to be showcased, even if it would mean a certain demise in many a gaping maw.
I made the cookies this time with hazelnuts, but confess that I liked them better when I made them last year with pecans — perhaps it’s their higher oily content? Next I’d like to try them with my favorite, walnuts. Epicurious has two recipes for these cookies, one labeled “Russian” one labeled “Mexican” and they are exactly the same except for two things: the Russian ones have a quarter-cup of additional nuts replacing a quarter-cup of flour, and the Mexican ones suggest you add an eighth of a teaspoon of cinnamon to the powdered sugar. As I’ve loved both (not realizing they were nearly identical until later), I am torn over which to share so below, I am combining the two. Evidently, today is Walk on the Wild Side Day here at Smitten Kitchen.
Finally, the baker’s trick: A couple weeks ago, I made those wee chocolate tartlets with a pate sucree so good, I couldn’t part with it. To keep myself from eating it raw — though we all know I still did — I rolled it out, cut it with cookie cutters, brushed the tops with cream and sprinkled coarse sugar on them. I didn’t have enough to do this, but they would have made perfect sandwich cookies, filled with some ganache or seedless raspberry jam. The moral of the story: waste not those scraps! I don’t mean to seem superficial, but pretty much anyone who brings me a tin filled with a pile of sparkly homemade cookies is guaranteed to be asked over again. Isn’t it the same for everyone?
Russian Tea Cakes, Mexican Wedding Cakes
Adapted from Epicurious
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup pecans, hazelnuts or other nuts, toasted and finely ground (if using hazelnuts, wrap in a dishtowel while still warm and roll about until most of the brown skins come off)
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar and vanilla; beat until well blended. Beat in flour, then nuts. Divide dough in half; form each half into ball. Wrap separately in plastic; chill until cold, about 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk remaining 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and cinnamon, if using, in pie dish to blend. Set cinnamon sugar aside.
Working with half of chilled dough, roll dough by 2 teaspoonfuls between palms into balls. Arrange balls on heavy large baking sheet, spacing 1/2 inch apart. Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom and just pale golden on top, about 18 minutes. Cool cookies 5 minutes on baking sheet. Gently toss warm cookies in cinnamon sugar to coat completely. Transfer coated cookies to rack and cool completely. Repeat procedure with remaining half of dough. (Cookies can be prepared 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature; reserve remaining cinnamon sugar.)
Sift remaining cinnamon sugar over cookies and serve.
Makes about 4 dozen.
We Italians also have a version.. ‘Italian Wedding Cookies”.. we make them with almonds and shape them into a crescent shape.. A big time favorite anytime of the year. If you make a batch, freeze them in balls.. you can take them out anytime and have a few with some tea… yum.
are you going to be doing “slivers” this year?
(wish me luck on the gourges and the parmesan biscotti, we’re having a retro new years eve party.. complete with cheesy music, cheesy outfits and cheesy fondue)
Ah, and my best friend’s mother always makes Maida Heatter’s Austrian Walnut Crescents which sound very similar, and are my absolute favorite.
Slivers, gah. Must I?
Those look delicious (and resourceful!) Very nice photos.
Wah wah I want cookies. Boo hoo. Sniff. Sniff.
I almost forgot:
OMG how excited are you for the effin Rodeo?
The vision of our crew at this event is keeping me happy in my cookieless life all day….
aha aha a a hah ahah a hah ah ah
I don´t think I´ve ever seen those “Mexican-Russian-whatever” cookies before, but they look dreamy. Definitely with cinammon for me, you can never go wrong with cinammon.
And the pate sucre cookies are childhood favorites of mine. My mom used to make the dough (with a few teaspoons of lemon zest) and let me play with all the cute cutters she had. We would sprinkle them with loads of sugar and eat them warm… they would just melt in my mouth… ok, I´m officially craving buttery cookies now.
I’ve been craving the Mexican-Russian cookies for a few days now. You’ve inspired me; I’m making them tonight.
I’m just wondering, where do you possibly find the time to do all this - I only wish I could do as much cooking as you do… Perhaps that can be my New Years Resolution!
Jocelyn - SO EXCITED. There are no words. Everyone else: As the worst possible idea for a Welcome Home we could possibly think of for Jocelyn, we’ve decided to buy tickets for this. Even if you tell me you’re not jealous, I still don’t believe you.
Marce - I think they’ll taste more familiar, just buttery awesome cookies with ground nuts. Also, if Alex doesn’t take the leftovers to work tomorrow, he’s going to have to ROLL me down those stairs. You hear that, honey?
Phc - Yay! I can’t wait to see the chalky-faced Olive pictures. :)
Tammy - Ugh, well, I don’t have much of a life. Also, I try to plan ahead. Like, okay, gym on Monday, so I’ll make the biscotti on Tuesday, gym on Wednesday, but we’ll eat take-out so I have time to try one more recipe (this being last week and trying to make a few different treats for the party in the order of what would store the best). And I bank stuff a little, like I haven’t had a chance yet to tell y’all about the ridiculous dinner I made last night. Also, like I said, I don’t have much of a life.
I love Mexican wedding cakes! And that sounds like a good idea for saving the scraps. I always hate feeling wasteful with them.
Also, it takes a lot to cookie me out.
So, thank you for sharing.
See, and there I was feeling guilty about eating yet more (and more) cookies, enough so that I pulled out some dough sitting in the fridge, and I actually baked it into new cookies *after* christmas goodie distribution was finished. More tempting still, there is the coconut sitting on the counter just waiting to be toasted and formed into macaroons… and the peach jam for the lintzer cookies I just didn’t have time to finish… I actually just posted about this today on my own blog: oh how I am obsessed with cookies! These look wonderful too! Too many recipes and too little time. And that’s a nifty trick to use up scraps too
I am a Italian/Irish girl who married into a Mexican family and they always buy these cookies at weddings and other big occassions. Everyone always fusses over them! I am so excited to try this recipe for my husband (because we live 3000 miles away from his family) and also to perfect them and then offer to make them when we visit his family and hopefully score some points with the mother-in-law!
Hey there, Deb. Love your site. Found you through Whoorl, I believe.
Russian Teacakes are near and dear to my heart, one of my all-time favorite cookies. My recipe - check that - the recipe I use is different. In the interest of research, you can find it here:
http://thecookiequeensenglish.blogspot.com/2006/12/russian-teacakes.html
You’re in my bloglines. I dig that you write so often! Always fun to read about food!
I just made these with my mom at home. We make them every year, but we call them Snowballs. They’re my dad’s favorite. But our recipe differs pretty significantly.
Same butter, vanilla, and nut amounts. But 4 cups of flour, and only a couple tablespoons of sugar. We chop our nuts, instead of grinding them. All ingredients are combined by hand (my favorite part as a child), rolled and then baked. While warm, they are tossed a few at a time in a bag w/ powdered sugar, then again for a second coating. They come out nutty and sweet (but not too much) and melt in your mouth.
Okay, I have sparkly cookies in hand…may I come over please? I KIDDD! Also, I am starting to plan my New Year’s Eve dinner for the boyfriend and I want to do something with gnochi (sp?), I’m looking for sauce ideas.
My mom makes the best Russian Tea Cakes and she’s always made them with walnuts. This year, she substituted pecans, and if she hadn’t told me I’m not sure I would have been able to tell the difference. (Although side by side, I’m sure they’re very different. But that’s what you get when you only taste a cookie once a year.)
Hurrah! Something I already know how to make!! Those Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes are a Christmas tradition in my house…my fingers still hurt when I think of tossing the hot cookies in powdered sugar! An excellent choice!
From what I’ve read… the oilier nuts create more tender cookies. Personally, I’m passionate about almonds, but they don’t work at all for tea cakes.
Ahww… geez.
Now I’m craving my almond nut cookie; coated in powdered sugar.
I’m way late to the cookie exchange here, but just had to comment on these; one of my earliest childhood memories (and I’m 53!) is helping my mother grind the walnuts for the dozens and dozens of her version of this cookie she made only at Christmas every year. She simply called them “Nut Balls” and back in the 50s there were no smutty/funny connotations to that name. We used to grind the nuts in an old-fashioned hand-cranked meat grinder, the kind you clamp to the kitchen counter. One year my grandmother gave Mom several pounds of nuts already ground, and Mom had real tears of gratitude in her eyes - it was a generous gift, both of labor and money saved. And I don’t think she bothered with rolling them in sugar, maybe because my father never liked confectioner’s sugar or maybe she just thought it was too messy. But even unadorned they are one of the best Christmas cookies around, so buttery and tender.
We make these every year and they are my favorite also. Instead of grinding up the nuts, we make the dough and wrap it around the whole hazelnut. This is the way my grandmother did it (and probably her’s before her).
Thank you for a great read every morning.
Oh. My. God. And I was just worrying when my spate of Holiday baking would start.
They start with these.
Almonds?
Pistachios?
Sigh. And as always, your photos are *mouth watering!*
You’re recipes sound fabulous and at my age (77) I have seen and used hundreds of recipes but for my Christmas Cookies I always make “My Sister-in-law’s Moth Balls” as my youngsters called them and now so do the grandchildren. The only thing different that my recipe calls for is 3 Tablespoons of regular white granulated sugar instead of the powdered sugar which we like best. I have made both but the one with regular sugar just seems to have a better texture for us and I also have used pecans but walnuts are our favorite. Love your website.
I made these cookies last night. Russian tea balls are one of my family’s Christmas traditions, well mom’s from Cincinnati. Our recipe is quadrupled and every year I utter, “holy cow FIVE sticks of butter!” Cook while watching It’s a Wonderful Life for the full effect. As I remember walnuts make the cookies a little bitter. the hazelnut sounds delicious.
This discussion of hazelnuts/pecans/walnuts brings back fond memories. When making this type of cookie for friends who don’t or won’t eat nuts, a beloved friend and great baker would substitute canned fried chow mein noodles. Just crumble them up a bit. The crunchiness, the oiliness, the nuttiness of fried noodles work beautifully as a substitution. Yes, you purists who are not allergic to nuts can turn your nose at the idea, but for the rest of us it’s a delightful and surprising addition.
This is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE COOKIE! Brings back memories of Christmas morning and stuffing my little face with them! OH YUM!!!
heyy guyys we are using this recipe for a food project!!!
YAAYYY!
we are in grade 9 and we kick butt.
be jelous
I stumbled upon this site with Stumble!, and whoo am I glad. My grandson loves Mexican Wedding cookies. There’s a patisserie extraordinaire a block away, and whenever we walk past, he asks if he can get a “white cookie”. And they’re always out. No other cookie will take its place, as far as the kid is concerned. Until reading your recipe, I didn’t realize that even I, a retired-from-cooking gramma, can make these!
I loved making these for high tea but due to food alergies i usually left out the nuts completely and substituted 2 teaspoons of lime zest. It’s amazingly light and fresh and a great compliment to the butter content of the cookie. you should try it!
We love the Mexican Tea cakes but our spin on the recipe is to put a chocolate morsel in the middle and roll the dough around it . We toss them in icing sugar when hot . I start getting requests for them in October .
I made this recipe last night. They were the easiest cookies in the world to make. I was able to get all 4 dozens on my one cookie sheet to only have to bake one batch (loved that). I sampled a warm cookie freshly rolled in sugar and about passed out from the marvelous flavor in my mouth. Incredible!!! I gave them away today as Christmas gifts to the people I work with. I wrapped bundles of 4 cookies in cellophane and put them in handmade brown bags and handmade tags wrapped with country ribbon and yarn. They were a hit!! Everyone came by to say how scrumptious they were. A few even asked for the recipe. I told them about this website. I can’t wait to try another recipe from this website.
the Mexican Tea Cakes were the winner of our Christmas cookies this year, beating out the Pfeffernuesse and the butter cookie cut-outs. Thanks!
I never realized it, but these are what my family just calls Pecan Balls, and they MUST be made every Christmas! Funny how I never made that connection :)
I made these last night (because wedding=romance=valentine’s day, right?) and they were a big hit at my house.
Growing up Mexican American in deep South Texas; these cookies were a big part of childhood memories, through weddings (tiny piece of cake, pile of cookies). Seeing this recipe was one of my cooking moments (like marshmallows and pasta) - you can actually MAKE THOSE!
Great recipe, very authentic.