Many of my childhood food memories revolve around my maternal
grandmother’s kitchen and dining room table.
She was a fine cook and baker…from a long line of fine cooks and
bakers. It is therefore a bit strange
that there are really only two cookies that I associate with her: a soft, cake-y, chocolate drop cookie (with
raisins and topped with a smear of chocolate frosting) and Russian Tea Cakes. The name of the former is lost
to me—I’m not sure I ever knew it. They
were just “Grandmom’s cookies” to me. I
have never run across them anywhere other than in her home. The Russian Tea Cakes, on the other hand, are
familiar to most Americans…although the name varies from family to family. Some know them as Mexican Wedding Cakes….and
sometimes you will find them called Pecan Snowballs (or some variant thereof). I learned to call them Russian Tea Cakes in
Junior High Home Ec class. My
grandmother called hers, “Tea Balls.”
Whatever you call them, they are an addictive and delicious little
cookie….tender, buttery, nutty and not too sweet. I have been hungry for them recently. I used to make them all the time, but for some
reason I haven’t made them in a while. So
yesterday, I made a batch…just for me…just because. I am sharing the recipe here, not because it
is rare or unusual, but because they were what I happened to be baking at home…and
because it has been a while since I have posted anything. (It has been an unusually busy late summer
and fall season for me. Perhaps this
accounts in part for my desire to make a cookie that reminds me of a simpler,
slower time.)
As I said, this is not an unusual recipe. The recipe I use is the one I learned to make
in Junior High…it’s most likely from Betty Crocker. (I can’t imagine it’s too different from my
grandmother’s recipe.) Over the years I
have made two small changes to it.
Around the time I started cooking/baking professionally, I switched to
unsalted butter for all of my baking (and cooking). I’m sure the original recipe used salted
butter. If you like, you can increase
the salt to a half teaspoon to account for this change, but I never have. I like the pure, butter-y, nutty flavor as it
is.
The second change came about one time when I was feeling
particularly lazy and instead of chopping the pecans by hand, I threw them into
the food processor with all of the flour and processed until the nuts were very
finely chopped—much more finely than if I had chopped them by hand. (Without the presence of the flour you would
never be able to process them so fine without turning them into an oily mess.)
The resulting cookies were especially moist and tender. I have prepared them this way ever
since.
The Tea Cakes I made were just the thing…perfectly satisfying my
craving for something familiar and special, all at the same time. New recipes are great, but sometimes an old
friend is even better. If you are
feeling a bit nostalgic—and I find that Fall, with the return of school and the
coming of the holidays, brings on those kinds of feelings—take a minute to
prepare a recipe that is old and well loved.
It just might be the perfect momentary antidote to a too busy schedule, a gray
afternoon, or a bad day at work. And if
you have never made a version of these delicious little pecan cookies, you
should give this recipe a try. It’s
fast, easy…and I think there’s none better.
Russian
Tea Cakes
1 cup (1/2 lb.) unsalted butter
1/2 cup (2 oz.) powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla
2 1/4 cups (9 oz.) all-purpose flour
1/4 t. salt
3/4 c. (3 oz.) pecans
Briefly cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the vanilla. Set aside.
Place the flour and pecans in a food processor and
process until the pecans are finely ground—some will have disappeared into the
flour, but there should still be small, discernible pieces of pecans.
Add to the butter mixture with the salt. Stir to form a soft dough.
Mold into 1-inch balls and bake on an ungreased or
parchment-lined baking sheet at 400° until set—about 8 to 10 minutes. The cookies will have lost their wet look,
will have puffed slightly and cracked.
The bottoms of the cookies will be golden brown.
Remove from the oven and cool for one minute
on the baking sheet. Transfer the
cookies to a wire rack and let cool for five minutes.
While the cookies are still warm (not hot), toss in
powdered sugar (be gentle, they break).
Finish cooling on a wire rack.
If
you like, use a sieve to dredge the cookies lightly with a final coating of
powdered sugar. Store air tight.
Makes 48 cookies.
Note: The
cookies should still be slightly warm when tossed in the powdered sugar so that
the sugar will adhere…but they shouldn’t be hot. If the cookies are too hot, the sugar will
melt to a frosting-like coating.
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