Russian Tea Cakes

In my mother’s recipe box, there is a card with a recipe for cookies called Russian Tea Cakes. The recipe is attributed to one Agnes Scebold. My mother rented a room from Agnes when she worked in a defense plant in Chicago during World War II. I remember the recipe because it is so similar to a cookie that I make.

I got an e-mail today with links to various cookie recipes at bettycrocker.com. One is called Russian Tea Cakes. Hm. I checked it out, and it is exactly the same as Agnes’s recipe, to the letter -- same ingredients, same amounts, same oven temp, same baking time, same every detail.

These cookies are short, contain finely chopped nuts, and after baking are covered in powdered sugar.

This is not a unique cookie. Apparently any chopped nut will do for Russian Tea Cakes, but if you use pecans, you get Mexican Wedding Cookies. If you use almonds and shape them into horns instead of balls, you get almond crescents. That's what I make, but I call them rohlíčky, which is Bohemian for "horn" and is what my Bohemian family always called them.

So how did Agnes and Betty end up with exactly the same recipe for a cookie with exactly the same name? Well, I can't see Betty Crocker stealing a recipe from a Chicago housewife who has probably been dead for 50 years.

So I am forced to conclude that Agnes got the recipe off a bag of Gold Medal flour, or some other General Mills product. But obviously Betty Crocker has gotten a lot of mileage out this recipe over the years.

Here it is:

Russian Tea Cakes
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-1/4 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
3/4 cup finely chopped nuts
1/4 teaspoon salt
powdered sugar

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


I'll bet mine are better, though. Want that recipe? Let me know.