I received several emails requesting the recipe for the Pink Lemonade Tea Cakes that were featured in the Secret Garden Baby Shower that we shared with you on Tuesday. I asked Nicole to share it with us, and of course, she obliged. What a doll! Here you go!

Russian Tea Cakes, Mexican Wedding Cakes, Snowballs–by whatever culture and whatever name you know these cookies, I call them delicious.  They’re a mainstay of our holiday cookie repertoire, but who says they’re just for Christmas?  They’re delicate, delicious, and darn easy to make.

You can’t go wrong with the standard recipe, of course, but for the Secret Garden baby shower, I wanted everything to be pink, so I dreamed up a new version of these classic cookies with a citrus twist.

Pink Lemonade Tea Cakes:
1 cup butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup finely chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans, typically)
1 tablespoon King Arthur brand Lemon Powder
A few drops of LorAnn Oil flavoring, Lemonade flavor
pink food coloring (if desired)

To Coat the Cookies:
approximately 2 cups extra powdered sugar
1 or 2 tablespoons more King Arthur Lemon Powder
pink petal dust or luster dust

Directions:
1)  Heat oven to 400.

2)  Mix room temperature butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla thoroughly.  Add a few drops of the LorAnn Oil Flavoring.  This is strong stuff, and a little goes a long way!  Stir flour, salt, King Arthur Lemon Juice Powder, and nuts in, and mix just until well incorporated.

3)  Form dough into one inch diameter balls and put on a greased cookie sheet.

4)  Bake 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are just starting to look golden brown on the bottom.  The cookies will still appear pretty pale on their tops.

5)  While still warm, roll the cookies in your pink powdered sugar mixture. I like to use a fork and a spoon for this step, both to keep my hands clean and protect my fingers from the heat.    This first layer might look a little moist and darken as the cookies cool, but don’t worry.  Let cool completely, and roll the cookies in the powdered sugar coating a second time.  This will give you the lovely lasting powdery coating.

To make the pink powdered sugar coating:
1) Place approximately two cups of powdered sugar in a bowl or tupperware container.  (I like something with a lid, so I can shake the ingredients to mix thoroughly and quickly.)  Add one or two tablespoons of King Arthur Lemon Juice Powder to the powdered sugar–it really depends on how lemony you want the cookie to be.  Sprinkle some pink petal dust or luster dust in the mix.  Luster and petal dusts are essentially powdered food coloring, and are used in cake decorating.  You can find it online, or at your local cake decorating store.  A word of warning:  it is *not* the same as the Wilton brand shimmer dust you can get at major craft stores.  Look for the real stuff; it’s much more intense and beautiful.  I used Magenta petal dust in these pictures.  Mix well, and you’ll have a pale pink powdered sugar with a bright lemon tang, perfect for coating the cookies.

Thank you Nicole!

If you make these, let us know!