Classic Butter Balls
A Christmas staple! Our Classic Butter Balls, also known as Russian Tea Cakes, are so easy, but so delicious and perfect little snowball bites of Christmas!
Next, try our Peppermint Snowball Cookies!
It’s the final countdowwnnn! Can you believe we’re just a couple of days away? We’re wrapping up our Christmas Cookie Platter Gifts for our neighbors and no cookie plate would be complete without Classic Butter Balls!
Although these are now more commonly known as Russian Tea Cakes, I prefer Butter Balls because lets be honest, that’s exactly what they are. Little sugar-coated balls of butter. So simple, yet so perfect.
Recipe Video
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These are up there as one of my husband’s favorite cookies, which is why he has requested that we give away 99% of them, otherwise if he makes eye contact with the little snowball butter bites, we’ll end up only having 1% to give away. 😛
The best thing about these cookies? They’re so stinkin’ easy. Less than 20 mins and you’ll have dozens of Butter Balls ready to decorate any cookie tray.
May your Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or whatever you observe) be filled with many delicious treats! Now that we’ve finished all of our cookie baking, we’re ready for the rest of our Christmas Cooking Traditions. Next up, Christmas Eve Pierogis!
Enjoy! As always, if you make this recipe or any of my others, I love to hear what you think! Leave a comment below, email me, or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
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Classic Butter Balls
Ingredients
- 1 cup soft unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar 51 g + 1/4-1/2 cup (25 g-51 g) more for dusting
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour 326 g
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 3/4 cup chopped walnuts 68 g
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a large bowl mix together butter, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla until well incorporated.
- In a medium bowl, sift together flour and salt. Stir into butter mixture. Add walnuts and mix.
- Roll dough into 1 inch balls. Place on un-greased cookie sheets. They don’t spread so they don’t need to be spaced far apart.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool for a minute or two, then add another 1/4-1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar to a small bowl and then roll just out of the oven balls in sugar (don't worry, they wont fully coat, yet). Let cool and then roll again to get the full sugary coating.
Hi! My cookies melted together! What did I do wrong
Melted together on the baking tray? Oh no! I’m so sorry they didn’t work out for you! It sounds like they weren’t fully formed into balls before they were baked?
The butter balls taste good, but the recipe made 32, not 40. Also the dough was very dry and crumbly. I had to squish a spoonful of dough crumble in my hand to make each one inch ball. The dough of my favorite recipe which I can’t find is more moist.
too soft – didn’t work for me
Hi Mel! Too soft meaning you were unable to form them into balls or that when they were baked you felt like the baked texture was too soft? I would love to know more to be able to troubleshoot with you!
Can I make recipe put the dough in refrigerator and roll and bake off tomorrow?
Definitely! Enjoy, Shirley!
One of the most delicious and simple cookie recipes ever!
Thanks, Juyali!
This is the classic and perfect recipe! My oven gets real hot so I do 350*. But something I noted this time. I made this recipe twice in a week. First time I mixed by hand being lazy and the cookies were fine but the last time I used my hand mixer and they were superior. Never try to take the cookies off the sheet right away bc they will fall apart. Honestly baking cookies gets no easier than this recipe!