These easy and delicate walnut-based snowballs cookies are known as Mexican Wedding Cookies, Russian Tea Cakes, and Swedish Tea Cakes - everyone wants to claim them! Use regular flour or up to a cup of buckwheat flour - the sandy texture is perfect for these delicate, sandy cookies.
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes
Yield: About 3 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 cup walnuts
- 3/4 cup butter
- 1 1/3 cups powdered sugar (confectioners' sugar), divided
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 cup buckwheat flour
- 1 cup all purpose flour
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 300°F. In a food processor, pulse walnuts until finely minced. Transfer to a bowl. Put butter and 1/3 cup of the powdered sugar in the food processor and pulse, stopping and scraping down as necessary, until butter and sugar are combined.
- Add vanilla and salt and whirl to combine. Add flours and pulse to combine. Turn the dough into the bowl with the walnuts and stir to combine thoroughly. If you don't mind getting your hands dirty feel free to gently knead the dough to incorporate the walnuts.
- Butter two baking sheets or line them with parchment paper or silpat baking mats.
- Roll dough into bite-size balls and place them on a baking sheet about an inch apart. Bake until set, about 10 minutes. Let cool a few minutes and gently roll each cookie in the remaining powdered sugar. Set cookies on a rack and let them cool completely. Gently toss completely cooled cookies in the powdered sugar a second time. [Repeat with remaining dough as necessary.]
- Store cookies in a tin or air-tight container. Christmas tea cakes keep a week or two.
