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

FAQs

Why are my snowball cookies falling apart after baking? ›

There was probably too much flour added or they were over-baked. Add another tablespoon of butter or a tablespoon of milk. If they are falling apart a few days later, then they were sitting out too long. Keep them in an airtight container to help them last longer.

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.

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.

Snowball cookies flatten if the dough was not chilled before baking or if the oven temperature was too low.

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.

This black tea is smoky and smoldering. Its flavors are analogous to that of our Lapsang Souchong and it is described on our website as almost "pipe-ready". The smokiness that you taste in this tea will remind you of the deep breaths that you inhale around a summer campfire.

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.

In Russia, the most common preparation of tea is called zavarka—and the key here is that it's not about what kind of tea you brew, but how you brew it. Get acquainted with the intricacies of Russian tea etiquette, a fundamental component of the country's social culture.

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.

1) Don't grease your baking pan — line it instead

“For the best results, choose a silicone baking mat or parchment paper to line your pan,” Dawn recommends. “Simply greasing your pan — basically adding fat to it — will encourage your cookies to spread.” (Check out our side-by-side test baking to see for yourself.)

Are Russian tea cakes actually Russian? ›

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).

Epicurious has two recipes for these cookies, one labeled “Russian” one labeled “Mexican” and they are exactly the same except for two things: the Russian ones have a quarter-cup of additional nuts replacing a quarter-cup of flour, and the Mexican ones suggest you add an eighth of a teaspoon of cinnamon to the powdered ...

History. Modern Christmas cookies can trace their history to recipes from Medieval Europe biscuits, when many modern ingredients such as cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, almonds and dried fruit were introduced into the west.

Too much flour: If you add too much flour to your cookie dough, it will be dry and crumbly. Make sure to measure your flour correctly using a kitchen scale or by spooning it into your measuring cup and then leveling it off. Not enough fat: Fat helps to bind the ingredients together and make cookies chewy.

Dry – “Dry” or “Crumbly” dough is a product of over-mixing or using too much of any ingredient during the mixing process. This can be reversed by adding one to two tablespoons of liquid (water, milk or softened butter) to your mix.

The cracks in crinkle cookies or molasses cookies occur when the top of the cookie dries out before the interior has set. The means that as the cookie expands, it starts to crack the dry surface.