Russian Tea Cake

• Heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
• Mix 1 cup of melted butter, ½ cup of castor sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla extract in a mixing bowl.
• Add 2 ¼ cups of all-purpose flour into the bowl and give it a good stir.
• Add ¾ cup of chopped nuts and ¼ tsp of salt into the mixing bowl and stir it well till the dough holds together.
• Once the dough is ready, take a small portion of dough and make 1-inch balls.
• Place all the cookie balls on a cookie sheet that is ungreased 1-inch apart.
• Place the cookie sheet in the preheated oven and let it cook for twelve minutes. Make sure cookies do not turn brown.
• Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and transfer the cookies to a wire rack in order to let them cool a little bit.
• Roll the cookies in powdered sugar and then let them cool and then roll them in powdered sugar once more.

Trivia

Interestingly, Russian tea cakes have no association with Russian cuisine. Many speculations have been made about the origin of these cookies but there is no real evident found supporting the speculations. It is speculated by some that these delicate cookies either inspired from Eastern European shortbread cookies or inspired by the cookies served beside Russian Samovars or tea urns. However, these cookies became so popular by the 20^th century that they are served in America during special occasions like Christmas and weddings. These little cookies have resemblance with butterballs, snowball cookies, Mexican wedding cookies and also with Italian wedding cookies.