Christmas Made Easy, Part 2: Russian Teacakes

These are a tradition in my family, and well worth the effort.

Ingredients: 

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

½ cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ¼ cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

¾ cup finely chopped nuts

¼ teaspoon salt

Powdered sugar

Instructions:

-Heat oven to 400ºF.

-Mix butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar and the vanilla in large bowl. Stir in flour, nuts and salt until dough holds together.

-Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

-Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set but not brown. Remove from cookie sheet. Cool slightly on wire rack.

-Roll warm cookies in powdered sugar; cool on wire rack. Roll in powdered sugar again.

*Makes 4 dozen cookies

*Changes: In my family we nix the nuts, and instead wrap the dough around a Hershey's kiss before we bake it. That way its like a little present when you bite into it. My mom buys tons of different flavors like mint, cherry, hot cocoa, candy-cane, and of course regular chocolate. It's become quite a game to see which flavor we get. It's important to wrap the dough fully around the chocolate so its completely covered, but not too much bigger either. Too big, too much dough, too small, the chocolate melts through when you bake. That's why we don't do Rolo's anymore, although those were my favorite. This is what we do for my entire ward, meaning we do it for two days straight. We put on Christmas movies and do an assembly line with the littlest unwrapping kisses, mom and sister mixing dough, and the rest of us rolling the dough around the chocolate. Then we wrap each cookie in tin-foil, bag them, and deliver them around the neighborhood.

Last year we made over 1600. 

Sarah Allen