Russian Tea Cakes Recipe - Classic Christmas Snowball Cookies! (2024)

FAQs

Why are they called Russian tea cakes? ›

Originating in Russia, as the name suggests, this cookie was intended to be a dessert to accompany teatime, similar to the way the English enjoy tea with pastries. It is not credited to being invented by any particular person since the whole point of the cookies is that anybody can make them.

The origin for pecan snowball cookies is unknown. Beloved in many parts of the world, these cookies may have traveled to the U.S. by way of immigrants from Eastern Europe or Mexico. Since the 20th century, they've become part of traditional American offerings for weddings and holidays, including Christmas and Easter.

Outside the South, the words “tea cake” mean any cake served with tea. But to Southerners, tea cakes are more than that. They are the nostalgic cookies—crispy and golden around the edges, soft and cake-like inside—that are perfect for tea, or just about anything else you choose to drink.

Yes! But it's best to freeze Russian tea cakes before you roll them in powdered sugar.

Tea cakes were initially made by plantation cooks for the guest of white slave owners. These tea cakes, which Etha Robinson describes as rustic approximations of European teacakes¹, were typically made with simple ingredients such as sugar, molasses, eggs, and vanilla when available.

Russian Cake is prepared by mixing our almond cake, gold cake and devil's food cake with raspberry jelly, rum flavor and a hint of anise oil (licorice flavor). It is then topped with buttercream and nonpareils (aka sprinkles).

In the Southeastern United States, a teacake is a traditional dense large cookie, made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, milk, and flavoring. They are particularly associated with the African-American community and were originally developed as an analog of the pastries served to guests by white women when entertaining.

In the Southern colonies, every housewife knew how to bake tea cakes that had no extra flavoring except butter and sometimes a couple drops of rose water. The first American cookies that showed up in cook books had creative names like Jumbles, Plunkets and Cry Babies which gave no clue to what was inside the cookie.

The French usually consider themselves very different from the English, but when it comes to the word for cookie, both say biscuit. Like a cookie itself, the word can be broken into two parts: bis,a way to say “two” or “twice”, and cuit – “cooked”.

Indulge in Traditional English Fruit Teacakes which are sweet, yeasted buns, similar to hot cross buns and a delightful treat for late afternoon tea or breakfast. They're typically studded with currants or other dried fruits. Warm spices like cinnamon and mixed spice add a cozy touch to the flavor profile.

How do you keep tea cake moist? ›

Using an air-tight container is the best and easiest way to keep your cake from getting exposed to air. However, if you don't have one of those, you can wrap your cake in cling film, or if it's iced, place a large inverted bowl over it to trap the air.

Tea cakes contains 120 calories per 28 g serving. This serving contains 7 g of fat, 1 g of protein and 15 g of carbohydrate. The latter is 11 g sugar and 0 g of dietary fiber, the rest is complex carbohydrate. Tea cakes contains 3 g of saturated fat and 10 mg of cholesterol per serving.

There is an interesting legend of how the Russian cake got its name. The story goes that a New Orleans baker made it because he ran out of ingredients to bake a proper cake for the visit of the Russian Grand Duke Alexis when he visited the city in 1872 for Mardi Gras.

As you can probably guess, this drink originated in Russia dating all the way back to the early 1800s. It was traditionally composed of black tea with lemon and sugar, orange and pineapple juices, cinnamon, clove, honey, and lemon or orange wedges for garnish.

In conclusion, although the word "tea cake" has a confusing history, it probably derives from the custom of having cake with afternoon tea. Tea cakes soon became a mainstay of the British tea culture as their popularity increased and they were increasingly associated with drinking tea.

Answer: In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tea Cake is called Tea Cake because people couldn't easily say his real name, which is Vergible Woods. The nickname also reflects how sweet Janie finds him. Explanation: Tea Cake shows Janie affection which is something that is missing in her marriage with Joe and Logan.