Lavender Tea Cakes / Russian Tea Cakes  

by Julie Vision in the Kitchen

Lavender Tea Cakes (Yield - 5 dozen) (Both dough and cookies are freezable)

 2 cups soft butter

1 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar (plus extra for rolling)

2 teaspoons lavender extract OR vanilla extract

4 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups finely chopped nuts (I use walnuts)

Step #1 - Preheat the over to 400* F.

Step #2 -In a large bowl, mix together the butter, confectioners' sugar and lavender exact OR vanilla extract. You can do this with or without a mixer. I usually do it by hand. Just make sure you mix it thoroughly. Also, don't cheat on the sifting of the sugar; trying to work out lumps while mixing is a pain. The sifting makes blending the sugar way easier. Once mixed together, it will look like a big glob of soft butter.

Note: If you are using lavender, don't over pour your teaspoons; too much lavender makes things taste soapy.If you are using vanilla, over pour all you want, it will be delicious! If you want lavender but don't have extract, you can add a tablespoon of finely chopped lavender flowers. Make sure you chop them as finely as possible- the flavor in lavender comes from the oils in the flowers, which are only released if you shop or squish them. I recommend squishing them with the back of a spoon and then chopping. I will admit I'm not as big a fan of this method, as I don't love eating the lavender flowers (even though they are totally edible).

Step #3 - In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and salt. Also, make sure nuts are chopped in to very small pieces. Either run them through a nut chopper or chop them with a knife.

Step #4 - Slowly add the flour mixture and the nuts into the butter/sugar mixture until well incorporated. If you feel like living dangerously, you can sift the flour and the salt right into the bowl with the butter/sugar mixture. If you do this, make very very certain that you mix the salt in with the flour as you sift it in. This will prevent clumps of salt from forming in the cookies. It takes several minutes of sturdy mixing to get the flour incorporated into the butter mixture; make sure you work it together evenly and do not leave any lumps of butter. The dough will be thick, almost the consistency of soft play dough, by the time you are done.

Step #4 - Chill dough for at least 1 hour. You want to chill the dough so that you can easily roll it into balls without it sticking to your hands. If you chill the dough for more than a few hours, you may need to let it sit out to soften before you use it.

Step #5 - Roll dough into balls and bake for 10-12 minutes. Roll the dough into one inch balls and place them on a baking sheet that is either greased or lined with parchment. You'll want to place the balls an inch or so apart on the baking sheet. These don't expand too much, so you don't have to worry about giving them a vast amount of space. You want to bake these until they are just set/firm, not brown. If they brown in the over, they will be hard as rocks when they cool. Set = they hold their shape, they don't appear doughy, and they start to get tiny cracks in the surface.

Step #6 - Cool cookies and roll them in powdered sugar. Once the cookies cool completely, roll them in powdered sugar.

Step #7 - EAT!!!!! (or freeze)These cookies freeze really well. You can freeze them either before or after you roll them in sugar. If I'm making these ahead of time for an event, I usually freeze them without sugar and then thaw them and roll them right before I go so they look nice and fresh. My grandma has always frozen them after they were already rolled and they come out great that way, too! For instructions on to freeze the cookies and/or the dough, check out the instructions on the bottom of this post.