Russian Tea Cakes

I made these the other week (month?) for my Nana's 80th birthday party.  They've come to be a quick and easy favourite cookie recipe, so I thought I'd share.

RUSSIAN TEA CAKES

1 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup ground almonds 

1/2 cup icing sugar 

Preheat oven to 325.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a bowl, sift together the flour and salt.  

In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar and vanilla.  Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.  Add the ground almonds and stir until blended.  Add the dry ingredients and mix until the dough comes together in large clumps.  

To form cookie, roll dough between your palms into a 1-inch ball.  Place the balls 1 inch apart on the baking sheet.   

Bake cookies until the bottoms are light brown, about 20 minutes.  Let the cookies cool.  

Sift the icing sugar over the cookies.

Enjoy.

We don't usually have unsalted butter on hand, so I have used salted and then just left out the additional salt.  It doesn't seem to make a significant difference.  Also, you could use another nut (like hazelnuts) in place of the almonds.  Finally, I've found that it's easier to form the balls if the dough is sitting on top of the oven --the extra heat helps make them stick together more easily.

Let me know if you try baking these!  I'd love to hear how they turn out.  Alternately, if you have a great cookie recipe you'd like to share, feel free to leave it in the comments.  I love baking!