Russian Tea Cakes with Jam

These are an all year cookie-- Easy to do, fast, and travel well!  Customize them with your favorite jam, and you will have a buttery goodness treat whenever you want! Since there is no egg in them, or milk, they are party friendly!

Ingredients:

1c softened butter
1/2c sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2c all-purpose flour
2/3c seedless jam or choice

Makes: 48+ cookies
Time: 30min total

These cookies store very well in an air tight container-- for up to two week!  They go great with tea, milk, champagne, and by themselves.  Can you tell they are one of my favorites ;)

Directions:

1)Preheat oven to 400 degrees

2)Mix all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  the dough should be crumbly but firm.

3) Hand shape into small balls of dough.  Think about 1 heaping tables spoon per cookie.  When you roll the dough in your hands, it should form a ball easily that holds form.

4) Place the cookie dough balls on a baking sheet.  There is enough butter in these that the baking sheet does NOT need to be greased :)

5) Bake for 10 min.

6) Use a spoon to create a pocket in each cookie.

7) Bake another 2-5 minutes.

8) Let the cookies cool before you add the jam to the pocket you created via spoon.

9) Serve these cookies the next day... They are best having had time to "set."

Cost:

Total               $2.35
Per cookie      $0.05... That's five cents a cookie!!

•