Hazelnut Russian Tea Cakes with Christmas Sprinkles
These Russian tea cakes are made with hazelnuts and decorated with sprinkles for a festive twist. The cookies are easy to make and have a buttery light texture.
Lately, I’ve seen lots of lovely photos of Russian tea cakes, little nutty cookie balls rolled in powdered sugar. I really enjoy these cookies.
They are small, not too sweet, with a nutty buttery taste. They are so simple to make too! I read that they can be made with any type of nut. So, I decided to try making hazelnut Russian tea cakes.
Since it’s the holidays, I decided to add Christmas sprinkles to make them more festive. I decided to not add powdered sugar so the sprinkles wouldn’t be covered up, but you can skip the sprinkles and dust them with powdered sugar instead.
Ingredients
- Unsalted butter
- Vanilla extract
- Confectioners’ sugar
- All-purpose flour
- Chopped hazelnuts
- Sprinkles
Cream the butter and vanilla until smooth. Add in the sugar and flour and mix until combined. Stir in the hazelnuts.
I made ¾” dough balls for each cookie. I found they held their shape better – one-inch balls spread more when baked. Dip each one into the sprinkles and place them on a prepared baking sheet.
Bake the cookies for 12 minutes at 350°F. If you aren’t using sprinkles, you can roll the cookies in powdered sugar once they’re cooled.
While the cookies weren’t as melt-in-your-mouth as traditional Russian tea cakes since the sprinkles are harder than powdered sugar, they still came out quite tasty and I love the festive colors!
More Cookie Recipes
- Chocolate Hazelnut Sandies
- Green Tea Russian Tea Cakes
- Matcha Snowballs
- Italian Macaroons
- Pecan Russian Tea Cakes
- Spritz Cookies
Russian Tea Cakes
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 6 tbsp confectioners' sugar
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup chopped hazelnuts, I put whole, unsalted cooked hazelnuts through my food processor
- Sprinkles for decorating. I used red and green glassy sugar-like sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
- In a medium bowl, cream butter and vanilla until smooth. Combine the 6 tablespoons confectioners' sugar and flour; stir into the butter mixture until just blended. Mix in the chopped hazelnuts.
- Roll dough into 1-inch balls (I made my balls slightly smaller, about 3/4 of an inch, because they seemed to spread and flatten when 1 inch). Dip the top of the balls in a bowl of sprinkles and place them 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven. You can roll the cookies in powdered sugar once they are cooled, or simply leave them as they are.
I loved how festive they are too. I hope your niece enjoys them.
Hello
These hazelnut russian tea cakes looks colorful and attractive.Children like this very much as it is colorful.I will make it for my niece.I think its easy to make it.Thank you..
This is my first time making Russian Tea cookies and I can’t believe I didn’t make them before. They are so easy and yummy. I saw some almond crescent recipes and I was thinking of trying those too.
Love Russian Tea Cookies. I usually make an almond crescent cookie recipe every year for Christmas which is pretty much the same recipe as a tea cookie. Sometime I make crescents, sometimes just a ball if I’m in a rush and have to make many. These are the ones that the Mister always requests every year. And guess what he asked for as one of the first things I bake in the new oven?? haha!