Russian tea cakes

Or pecan butterballs

By Kim Carlson

December 20, 2008

Thank you, Julia Moskin, for your in-depth look at butter in the New York Times on Wednesday. This time of year, we’re really going through the stuff, and it pays to know a little more about optimum temperatures for working with butter, how the different brands of butter vary in flavor, and how to cream butter to best effect.

And that may be especially so with cookies like these, which are basically just butter, flour, confectioners’ sugar, and nuts (with a little vanilla and salt thrown in). Start with delicious butter, and the cookies — known variously as Mexican wedding cakes, Russian tea cakes, or butterballs — will taste sublime. And they’re great for this time of year because they resemble snowballs — another name to call them by.