Russian Teacakes

Russian Teacakes
Swedish Teacakes

Mexican Wedding Cookies
Italian Butternut cookies
Snowballs
Sandtarts
Southern Butterballs

This cookie has many names, but my 1978 Betty Crocker cookbook calls them Russian Teacakes and they are my favorite cookie of all time.  I made them for my wedding.  Well, the day before my wedding.  It was my stress relief activity.  The day before I got married I made a batch of these cookies and ate them.  This recipe makes about 50 cookies, but to me anyway, that is never enough.

1 and 1/2 cup butter (3 sticks) melty

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix that all together and add

3 and 1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Mix that all together and with a small ice cream scoop form dough balls and set onto a parchment covered sheet pan.  Bake 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes.  When cool enough to touch, but still warm, roll in powdered sugar. 

These are my cookies in my Trifle dish.  I hate my trifle dish.  It is number 3 on my worst wedding gifts that we received.

#1 - Ceramic Santa Claus candy dish made in China with lead paint.  Not only was it 14 inches tall, hideously ugly, but it was also ineffective at holding candy because of the lead based paint.  That first Christmas J set it in next to his truck at the mall parking lot while he went to work hoping someone would steal it.  No one touched it.  We took it to the D.I. the next day.  It was deemed too ugly to stay in the house.

#2 - Made in China stuffed snowman.  We were married November 11th, 2006.  NOT CHRISTMAS.  I can't tell you how many Christmas and Halloween themed items we got and nothing for Thanksgiving.  I hated them all.  We kept the snowman though.  We put him out every Christmas to get into the cheap and tacky holiday spirit.

#3 - The Trifle Dish.  First, I had no idea what a trifle was.  It is an English layered dessert with cake, berries and cream.  I made it once before but it makes so much food and even with my extended family at a Fourth of July BBQ no one could eat it all.  Another reason I hate it is transportation.  My family live about 30 minutes away and it is difficult to transport in the car.  Someone has to hold it the whole way or it is not going.

We had a summer BBQ at work, because my work is awesome like that.  A co-worker was looking at Trifle dishes to give as a wedding present.  I told her not to do it because I hate my trifle dish and I find it big, awkward to transport, and stupid.  She dared me to use my trifle dish more, like putting cookies in it.

Here you go Cyndee.  Here is my trifle dish filled with cookies.  It was hard to transport and fell over in the car one block from my house.  Because it has no lid and sort of forseeing this would happen, I put handywrap on top to keep the cookies in.

Enjoy the cookies.  Not the trifle dish.