Russian tea cake cookies (Mexican wedding cookies) 4 versions, one recipe

I remember the first time I tasted one of these tasty little morsels. An old neighbor made her moms recipe and brought some to me for Christmas. I emailed her the next day and asked her for the recipe, which she so graciously shared with me. Now, I make them every year.

This year, I wanted to try and make some variations of the original recipe. I made 1 batch each of the following variations:

• Regular (without nuts) tea cakes
• Pecan tea cakes
• Chai tea cakes
• Chocolate coffee tea cakes

Russian Tea Cake cookie recipe 

Here is the original recipe that was given to me many years ago, with a couple of minor changes made by me. You don’t even need a mixer!

• 1 Cup Margarine, room temperature
• 1/2 Cup powdered sugar
• 1 Tsp. Vanilla
• 2 1/4 Cup flour
• 1/4 Tsp. salt
• 3/4 Cup chopped pecans (or walnuts)*
• Powdered Sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 375*.
Prepare a cookie sheet with non-stick foil.
In a large bowl: mix margarine, sugar and vanilla. Mix in flour, salt and nuts until dough holds.
Form into 1 inch balls and place ½ to 1 inch apart on cookie sheet.
Bake 10-12 minutes until set, not brown.
Immediately roll in powdered sugar. Allow to cool and roll in sugar again.

For the variations, just enter the extra ingredients after you add the flour and salt.

Plain Tea Cakes 

To make plain, without nuts, just omit them from the recipe.

To make chai add:

• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• ½ tsp ground ginger

Also: add 1 tsp cinnamon to powdered sugar prior to rolling the cookies.

To make chocolate coffee cookies, add:

• 4 tsp cocoa powder
• 2 tsp instant coffee granules

Now you have 4 variations that you can make in about 2 hours! Each batch makes approximately 2 to 2.5 dozen cookies.

Recipes that go well with these cookies:

Easy white Russian Kahlua shake recipe

Alcoholic drinks: Coquito recipe

Butter cookie stick recipe