Russian Tea Cakes are delicate, buttery, and melt in your mouth cookies. These cookies have tender crumbs with crunchy toasted walnuts to give an amazing texture. These cookies are coated in icing sugar twice, and you can enjoy it with tea or milk! Watch the video for the tutorial.
You will learn how easy and quick you can prepare such delicate gems in your kitchen using simple and minimum ingredients, and you won’t believe it’s all you need to make irresistible Russian tea cakes.
If you never had Russian Tea Cakes, you will be in for a pleasant surprise. These cookies taste much like Italian wedding cookies except it has no eggs. Mexican Wedding Cookies is another name for Russian tea cakes! Don’t be surprised, in my baking journey, I found out that many countries have similar dishes but with different names.
Other Names for Russian Tea Cakes
In case you got addicted to these cookies (which is a high possibility) you can, of course, make it at home, but if you want to buy it from the store, then you can find it under these names too:
Sand Tarts.
Butterballs.
Polvorones.
Snowballs.
6 simple ingredients to make Russian tea cakes
- Flour
- Unsalted butter
- Icing sugar
- Vanilla
- Salt
- Toasted walnuts or pecans
How to Make Russian Tea Cakes
- Beat the sugar and butter and then add the rest of the ingredients and mix.
- Form 22 equal size balls.
- Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes.
- Dip the cookies in icing sugar. Dip again in icing sugar.
Those are the steps to make a melt in your mouth Russian tea cakes. As promised, simple, quick, and delicious.
(More details in the recipe card below.)
Tips for Perfect Russian Tea Cakes
- When measuring the flour, fluff the flour while it’s in the container and then spoon it in the measuring cup. Use the back of a butter knife to level the flour.
- If you are using salted butter, then omit the salt from the recipe.
- Toast the nuts and chop it before adding it to the cookie dough. Toasted nuts give better taste and texture to the cookies.
- The butter should be a little soft but don’t use half-melted or room temperature butter. Always use cool butter otherwise, the cookies will spread while baking.
- If you don’t have parchment paper or a silicone mat, you can grease the baking pan and then dust it well with flour.
- Coat the cookies with icing while warm, the first coating will stick to the cookies but will be wet because the sugar will release moisture due to the warmth from the cookies. Second coat the cookies with icing sugar when the cookies are cool. The second coating will stick to the first and won’t turn wet.
- These cookies do not spread while baking unless the butter in the dough melts. If you are working in a hot kitchen then after forming the balls, place the cookies in the fridge for 20 minutes before baking.
- The melt in the mouth texture comes from the icing sugar in the dough, if you don’t have icing sugar, grind the sugar available in your house by a grinder or mortar and pestle.
Can I Freeze the Russian Tea Cakes?
Yes, after the cookies cool completely place them in a Ziploc bag or an airtight container, and then place the cookies in the freezer. Do this before icing the cookies.
To serve frozen cookies, allow them to thaw in the fridge and then do the double coating with icing sugar.
How Long Can I Store the Russian Tea Cakes?
The cookies will stay fresh if stored in an airtight container and left at room temperature.
Up to one and a half month if frozen while in an airtight container. Do not coat the cookies with icing sugar if you are planning to freeze it.
What nuts can I use instead of walnuts?
You can use, almond, pecan, peanuts and you can also add chocolate chips instead of nuts, or a pinch of your favorite spice too!
More Cookies to Try:
Perfect Butterscotch Chips Cookies.
Melt in your mouth, buttery and rolled in icing sugar, these cookies are irresistible and made from simple ingredients. Watch the video to find out how easy it is to make these gems!
Russian Tea Cakes
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter soft
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 5 tablespoon icing sugar will add this to the dough
- 1 cup icing sugar to roll the cookies
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 5 tablespoon chopped roasted/toasted walnuts or pecans
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper or a silicone mat, in case you don’t have both to line the tray with, then grease and dust the baking tray with flour, keep aside.
- In a bowl, add the butter, icing sugar, vanilla, and salt. Whisk or beat with a hand mixer until smooth and creamy in texture.
- Mix in the flour, the mixture will look like wet sand, but that’s alright.
- Add the nuts and mix using a spatula.
- Form equal sized balls (around one heaping tablespooand place on the baking tray.
- Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 12 to 14 minutes in the middle shelf.
- Leave the cookies in the baking tray for 5 minutes. If you move the cookies while hot, it will crumble.
- In a bowl, add the icing sugar to roll the cookies. Roll the warm cookies one at a time in the icing sugar.
- Place the cookies on a wire rack to cool completely then roll again in the icing sugar for a second coating. The first coating will turn a little wet, and that’s fine.
- To store the cookies, place them in an airtight container.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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They look fantastic! I need to get some pecans for the holiday baking.
They were so good Angie, hope you give this recipe a try 🙂
They absolutely look delicious, and seems to be very easy to make…
Thank you 🙂
Wow, it looks so good! I will make it at the time of weekends. Thank you for sharing the Russian Tea Cakes recipe!
Thank you so much for your kind words! Let me know how you liked it.
These look really good! I think I have had some variety of them before, and really liked how they were not super sweet but just enough to feel like a treat. Thanks for sharing!
You are welcome Ashley 🙂
Tea cakes? wow! that sounds new to me. I love to try it someday.
Yum these russian tea cakes look amazing!!! Thank you for sharing your recipe!
These were amazing, and melts in the mouth 🙂
This looks really nice, and so yummy,
These are one of my FAVORITE treats, we usually have them around Christmastime. SO GOOD.
Wow I haven’t tried nor seen these before, and they look really delicious! Looking forward to making this sometime, thanks for sharing the recipe with us!
I want some of these right now! They remind me of the holidays because I make them every year during Christmas.
will love to try these..haven’t ever had them or even never ever heard of these..glad you shared this with us…great work though..
I haven’t heard of tea cakes earlier but they look tasty. My family loves sweets, cakes so it is going to be a favourite at home!
These look so yummy! I will have to try these!
I love this cakes. In my place it is called munchkins. Because its like one pop up cake you can have. Best for coffee and teas.
Russian Tea Cakes sounds delicious this is new for me and I would love to try this!
Those tea cakes look delicate but easy to make. I’d like to try on this recipe.
Now these are cute. I would love to try thse!
I really like cooking and this recipe looks mouth watering. Will try it out soon.
The cakes look delicious.now I have an. Idea on what To bake on Saturday