When you’re the baker of the group, your friend who is throwing a dinner party tends to demand ask you to make dessert. My peppermint brownies were the first thing requested but that still left a spot for a second dessert considering the amount of people that were scheduled to come over for dinner. I decided to suck it up and make a second dessert, using ingredients I already had in the house. This dessert became the, now, infamous Russian Tea Cakes (or balls as I like to call them because who dislikes balls?).
- Ingredients:
- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 6 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
- 2 cups AP flour
- 1 cup chopped walnuts (make sure these are chopped up nice and small)
- Additional confectioner’s sugar for decoration
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- In a medium-size bowl, cream the butter and vanilla until smooth.
- Combine the 6 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar and flour, stir into the butter mixture until just blended.
- Mix in the chopped walnuts.
- Cover the dough with wrap and put it into the fridge to chill for 5-10 minutes.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and roll dough into 1-inch balls.
- Place them 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet (walnuts are greasy so greasing the sheet is a terrible idea). These will also expand a bit, hence the 2 inches between each 1.
- Bake in the oven for 12 minutes.
- Allow cakes to cool completely before putting additional sugar in another bowl and rolling each cake in the sugar. You want these to be completely covered in sugar so you might want to roll them a second time.
Before the additional sugar, this is what they should look like.
Voila!
These came out delicious! They were a huge hit at the party and I was constantly asked why I didn’t make more. They are so simple and made with ingredients you (most likely) already have in your pantry. Perfect for the craziness of the holidays.
Baking, Photography, and Sarcasm 
Sugary balls in yo mouf!
Balls.