Russian Tea Cakes Recipe - Classic Christmas Snowball Cookies! (2024)

FAQs

Why are my snowball cookies spreading? ›

If you found your cookies to spread too much in the oven, there are a host of things that can cause this. Your butter could be too warm. You may have improperly measured the flour or the sugar (use that scoop and level method!). You could have placed the dough balls on a sheet pan that was warm.

Italian wedding cookies typically contain almonds or hazelnuts and are flavored with almond extract, vanilla extracts and spices like cinnamon or anise. Mexican wedding cookies, on the other hand, use a combination of ground nuts such as pecans and walnuts, as well as butter, sugar and sometimes chocolate chips.

Suitable for home freezingTo enjoy our baking at its best, store in a cool dry place - ideally not refrigerated. Warmer conditions will reduce storage life. If freezing, freeze as soon as possible after purchase.

Originating in Russia, as the name suggests, this cookie was intended to be a dessert to accompany teatime, similar to the way the English enjoy tea with pastries. It is not credited to being invented by any particular person since the whole point of the cookies is that anybody can make them.

Traditional tea in Russia includes the traditional type known as Russian Caravan as it was originally imported from China via camel caravan. As the trip was very long, usually taking as long as sixteen to eighteen months, the tea acquired its distinctive smoky flavor from the caravan's campfires.

The Problem: Your Oven Is Too Hot

The butter melts super quickly in a too-hot oven before the other ingredients have firmed up into a cookie structure. Therefore, as the butter spreads so does the whole liquidy cookie.

Overmixing the dough

If you overmix the dough, the cookies will be dry and crumbly. The best way to fix this is to add more liquid to the dough. This can be done by adding milk, water, or even melted butter. You may also need to add more flour to the dough if it is too wet.

Adjust Salt

Next, if you're swapping unsalted for salted butter, reduce the amount of salt listed in the recipe to adjust for the salt in the butter. Take ¼ teaspoon of salt away for every stick of butter used*. Do the opposite if you're swapping salted for unsalted butter.

The word biscotto, used in modern Italian to refer to a biscuit (or cookie) of any kind, originates from the Medieval Latin word biscoctus, meaning 'twice-cooked'.

The origin for pecan snowball cookies is unknown. Beloved in many parts of the world, these cookies may have traveled to the U.S. by way of immigrants from Eastern Europe or Mexico. Since the 20th century, they've become part of traditional American offerings for weddings and holidays, including Christmas and Easter.

What is a carnival cookie? ›

🎡The Carnival Cookie🎡 A massive, buttery-soft sugar cookie topped with. smooth vanilla buttercream icing and garnished. generously with rainbow sprinkles.

England. In most of England, a teacake is a light, sweet, yeast-based bun containing dried fruits, most usually currants, sultanas or peel. It is typically split, toasted, buttered, and served with tea. It is flat and circular, with a smooth brown upper surface and a somewhat lighter underside.

You can freeze filled cookies, such as thumbprint cookies and cookies that are coated in powdered sugar, such as Mexican wedding cookies either after they are baked or freeze the cookie dough. If you're freezing the baked cookies, wait to fill them or roll in powdered sugar until you're ready to serve.

Teacakes are often larger and flatter with a slightly harder consistency, meaning they can be enjoyed with a range of condiments, including jams and marmalades. A Hot Cross Bun is softer, with more spices baked in, so is often just enjoyed with butter.

Traditionally, these digestive aid biscuits were made with whole grain flour, vegetable oil, baking soda, sugar, and malt extract. While this recipe has certainly stood the test of time, I'm a firm believer that every baked good tastes better with butter, so I substitute it for the vegetable oil.

Most of them seemed to revolve around the concept of making the cake layers from a roll-out, honey flavored, soft cookie dough, and filled with a lightly sweetened sour cream frosting. Some variations called for pourable cake batters to make the layers, and a few had a dulce de leche based frosting.

If you've never had Russian Tea, it is a sugary mixture of orange Tang, pre-sweetened Country Time Lemonade, instant tea, cinnamon and cloves.

Tea cakes are soft roll-out cookies that are tender, chewy and pleasantly dense. They are a cookie with a cake-like texture. The ingredients are very simple (flour, sugar, butter, milk, nutmeg, and eggs), and the gentle flavor of nutmeg is what makes these so special.