Monday, December 23, 2013

RussianTeacakes for Christmas

This recipe is from my Grandma Zdenka Kucera. She made them every Christmas, along with dozens of other delicious cookies and pastries. 

Ingredients
1 cup softened butter
½ cup sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ¼ cups sifted flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup ground walnuts
Directions
Cream the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla, using an electric mixer. Stir the salt into the flour. Add the flour mixture into the butter mixture, using a slow setting on the electric mixer. Mix in the ground walnuts. Chill dough.
 
Roll dough into 1” balls and arrange on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350° for 9 – 11 minutes, until set, but not brown. Cool on the cookie sheet for 1 -2 minutes, then allow to finish cooling on a rack.
When completely cool, roll twice in powdered sugar.
 
Makes about 4 dozen.
 
Notes:

Soften refrigerated butter for about 15 seconds in the microwave. It should be soft, but not melted. Don’t use margarine or light margarine.
Fluff the powdered sugar and flour with a fork before measuring. Level contents of the measuring cup with the straight side of a knife.
Pulse walnuts in a food processor to grind. The results should look like a nut meal, rather than chunks.
Cookies can be placed about 1 ½” apart as they do not spread very much in the oven.
Cookies are fragile when hot. Give them a minute or two to cool before transferring them to a rack.
Recipe can be double or tripled.
Use a sturdy stand mixer since the dough is quite stiff.

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