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

FAQs

What are Russian tea cookies made of? ›

Flat cookies: If they flattened while baking, it's likely the dough was too warm or the cookie sheet was hot. Keep dough in the refrigerator between batches. Dry and crumbly texture: There was too much flour added or they were over-baked. Use a kitchen scale for accurate measurements.

Some have speculated the recipes either derived from other Eastern European shortbread cookies, may have migrated to Mexico with European nuns, or may have been associated with cookies served beside Russian samovars (tea urns).

Outside the South, the words “tea cake” mean any cake served with tea. But to Southerners, tea cakes are more than that. They are the nostalgic cookies—crispy and golden around the edges, soft and cake-like inside—that are perfect for tea, or just about anything else you choose to drink.

It was traditionally composed of black tea with lemon and sugar, orange and pineapple juices, cinnamon, clove, honey, and lemon or orange wedges for garnish. It was typically afforded only by the elite at this time and enjoyed during the cold of winter as a way to warm up.

These adorable treats are enough to bring out the kid in anyone. The classic Oreo® is covered in rich white and milk chocolate and carefully decorated to look like an adorable penguin. Absolutely the cutest way to enjoy milk and cookies, and they make a memorable dessert or holiday gift for the kid in all of us.

Not enough liquid

There are a few things you can do if your cookie dough is too dry and crumbly. First, try adding more liquid to the dough. This could be milk, water, or even just additional eggs. If that doesn't work, you could also try melting some butter and adding it to the dough.

Try using baking powder instead of baking soda. Baking soda encourages spreading while baking powder puffs the cookies up. If your recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of baking soda, you would use 3 to 4 teaspoons of baking powder.

Russian Cake is prepared by mixing our almond cake, gold cake and devil's food cake with raspberry jelly, rum flavor and a hint of anise oil (licorice flavor). It is then topped with buttercream and nonpareils (aka sprinkles).

There is an interesting legend of how the Russian cake got its name. The story goes that a New Orleans baker made it because he ran out of ingredients to bake a proper cake for the visit of the Russian Grand Duke Alexis when he visited the city in 1872 for Mardi Gras.

Is tea cake African American? ›

History of the Tea Cake

Tea cakes are an integral part of African American food culture. Originating over 250 years ago, these cookies were a recipe passed down verbally through generations.

As Spanish colonizers brought these recipes to Mexico, they seamlessly integrated into the local culinary landscape. The cookie's association with weddings stems from its sweet symbolism of happiness, unity, and the joyful occasions surrounding matrimony.

The origins of this cake are murky. Some sources say it may have first shown up in a Texas newspaper, which is why it's called "Texas" sheet cake, while others claim the name comes from the fact that it's the size of Texas. Regardless of its origins, this cake is truly a crowd-pleaser.

In the Southern colonies, every housewife knew how to bake tea cakes that had no extra flavoring except butter and sometimes a couple drops of rose water. The first American cookies that showed up in cook books had creative names like Jumbles, Plunkets and Cry Babies which gave no clue to what was inside the cookie.

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.

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.

Butter, sugar, flour, baking soda and vanilla make thin, cookie like layers of Medovik. They are softened with a cream filling that is one part whipping cream and one part sour cream mixed with sugar and vanilla. Sometimes a filling made with butter and sweetened condensed milk is used.

samovar, metal urn, often of brass, with a spigot near its base, widely used in Russia to boil water for tea. In traditional samovars water is heated by means of a vertical tube, containing burning charcoal, running up the middle of the urn. A filled teapot is set atop the chimney to steep.