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These are my Mom’s Famous Russian Tea Cakes! They’re the perfect classic Christmas cookie and we’ve been making them for my entire life. You can make these easy cookies in no time.
You can call these cookies so many names but they’re easy to make and everyone loves them. My mom gets several requests to make them all year long.
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What is a Russian Tea Cake?
A classic Christmas Cookie, tea cakes are buttery cookie balls filled with nuts. They only have a few ingredients and are rolled in powdered sugar after baking. They’re delicate and practically dissolve in your mouth.
I don’t make a ton of recipes more than once, but I make my mom’s Russian Tea Cake Recipe several times a year.
Why you’ll love this recipe
My mom has been making these longer than I’ve been alive. I call them her Famous Russian Tea Cakes because she’s always the one that makes them – and they’re always expected (and requested!) at parties. She makes them for Christmas, for Easter, for every holiday…and just because it’s a Tuesday.
Are Russian Teacakes the same as wedding cookies?
These buttery cookies have so many names. You may have heard them called Wedding Cookies (either Mexican Wedding Cookies or Italian), Butter Balls, Pecan Balls or Snowball Cookies.
I go back and forth between what I call them, but my mom’s recipe calls them Russian Tea Cakes so that’s what we call them!
5 Ingredients in a Russian Tea Cakes
There are just a few ingredients in these easy cookies:
- Butter: You can use salted OR unsalted butter (see recipe notes). Make sure it’s softened. Make sure to use REAL butter, the higher quality the better. (I love Challenge Butter best!)
- Powdered Sugar: This makes them nice and delicate.
- Vanilla: Always buy PURE vanilla!
- Salt: Needed if using unsalted butter – omit if using salted butter.
- Flour: Be sure to measure it correctly.
These cookies hold their shape when they bake, because the have no leavening and no egg.
Can you make Russian Tea Cookies without nuts?
You can omit the nuts in these cookies. I do it all the time! You have a few options for making these nut-free:
- Skip them and leave them plain
- Use mini chocolate chips
- Use toffee bits
Russian Tea Cake Secret
Many of you might wonder how I got my powdered sugar to look so powdery and not melted into the cookie. The secret: The Double Roll. Once cooled, roll the cookies a second time. Then they are powdery to the extreme.
FAQs
The best thing about making these cookies (besides eating them) is that they freeze well! My mom and I always freeze these for holidays or just any day you want a cookie. You may just have to re-roll them in powdered sugar once they’re thawed. Other than that you don’t have to do anything special to freeze them.
Traditionally Snowballs are filled with nuts, either pecans, walnuts or almonds. My mom always made them with pecans, so that’s what I use in this recipe.
Yes they freeze great for up to 3 months.
Just keep mixing – this dough is stiff and if you’re using a hand mixer it will take longer to come together than if you’re using a stand mixer. If it’s still crumbly you just need to keep mixing.
They should not flatten at all. Did you make any substitutions? If they flatten you may have not measured the flour correctly or your butter may have been too warm or melted.
My favorite Snowball Cookie Recipes:
You can make so many different variations of this cookie. I have over a dozen different flavors of Russian Tea Cakes, from lemon to spice to chocolate chip. You can even STUFF them with candy!
- Chocolate Chip Snowballs
- Lemon Snowballs
- Pumpkin Spice Snowballs
- Stuffed Snowballs
- Birthday Cake Wedding Cookies
- All of my snowball cookie recipes!
Mom’s Russian Tea Cakes Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226g) unsalted butter softened
- ½ cup (57 g) powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 ¼ cups (279 g) all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup finely chopped nuts pecans, walnuts, or almonds
- Powdered sugar for rolling
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Mix butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add flour and salt and mix until the dough comes together. Stir in the nuts. If dough is too soft, chill it until you can work it easily with your hands.
- Scoop 1 tablespoon balls of dough and place on prepared cookie sheet.
- Bake cookies for 7-8 minutes until bottoms are just slightly brown. Remove from oven and cool for just a minute, until you can handle them. Fill a small bowl with powdered sugar and roll each cookie in the sugar until coated.
- Place on a rack to cool. (Once cookies are cooled, you may want to re-roll them in more powdered sugar.)
- You can freeze these cookies or make them up to 4 days ahead of serving.
Recipe Video
Recipe Notes
- Omit the nuts and substitute mini chocolate chips
- Omit the nuts and substitute toffee bits
- Omit the nuts and make them plain
- Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
- Check out my snowball category for all ideas!
Recipe Nutrition
Other favorite Christmas Cookies:
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Shortbread Cookies (4 ways)
- Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles
- Cake Mix Crinkle Cookies
- Peanut Butter Blossoms
See more of my snowball recipes here!
Easy Russian Tea Cakes are a classic Christmas cookie we’ve been making my whole life. My mom’s recipe is famous in our family! They’re buttery cookies filled with pecans and they’re SO good!
Last Updated on October 3, 2022
Now my favorite cookie. Thank you!
Delicious cookies!!! I substituted the vanilla extract with maple extract and added chocolate chips plus thr pecans and they are really delicious! It’s late June and I’m practicing Christmas cookies recipes now and this will be on my list! Thank you!
The nuts had a wonderful flavour and the cookies melt in your mouth. It’s not a cookie I can have lots of though because I get enough of them after a few (for the next days, not just fir the dayl.
Easy to make an the way they turned out off the rocker. Big hit! Everyone just enjoyed.
I have searched for years for this recipe! My mother made them only at Christmas time and was very “conservative” about letting us eat them because of how “expensive” they are to make. Thank you so much for posting the recipe! They are perfect!
The recipe says bake at 375 but in your video you said 350….?
Sorry about that! You really can bake these at either, but go with what the recipe says!
Have you tried this recipe with gluten free flour?
I have not – if you try it will you let me know how it turns out?
These cookies are very good, but if you actually want 48 cookies you will need to double the recipe. I only got 26 cookies and they are 1″ to 1.5″ in diameter at most.
Love this recipe!! The cookies turned our perfectly! I didn’t get 48 though – only 39 and I thought I made them on the small side. That didn’t bother me at all though! They are perfect and delicious! I will definitely make these again for Christmas and News Years!! Love love love
I know them as Shortbread cookies or Snowballs. Have made them for more than 50 years. Now I have a granddaughter who has a nut allergy, so I substitute crushed peppermint candy canes in place of nuts. I also add some peppermint extract and paste food coloring to make them pink. Still roll in powfered sugar. She then knows these are her cookies, without nuts. Delicious.
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