Russian Tea Cakes

I have several versions of this recipe in my possession that were passed down from grandmothers on both sides of my family and they're all pretty much the same, except for the names. Great Grandma called them Russian Tea Cakes, Grandma Mil dubbed them Mexican Wedding Cakes and somewhere in Grandma Mil's notes, in handwriting I don't recognize, the recipe is tagged Shortbread Sugar Pops. Recently I made them for a Gay Pride bbq, colored the sugar to match the pride flag and called them Prop 8 Cakes. Whatever you call them, they're addictive and delicious.

dough:
1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped fine

coating:
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Mix dough ingredients together, cover tightly and refrigerate for at least one hour. If you're in a hurry you can skip the refrigeration, but it does make it oh so much easier to handle the dough once it's been chilled.

Preheat oven to 400°. Form dough into 1" balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. These cookies don't spread so you can feel free to place them close together. Bake 10-12 minutes, until firm and lightly browned. Remove from oven and let sit for 10 minutes before coating.

Put 1/2 cup of powdered sugar into a plastic bag and add warm (but not hot) cookies. Shake to coat.

To make colored sugar:

When I decided to do the rainbow colors I Googled "how to color powdered sugar" and came up with a couple different methods. They both sucked, but one significantly less than the other. The truly sucky method was the baggie method. The instructions I found were to put your sugar in a plastic bag and drip a couple drops of food coloring down the side then shake the bag to mix. This was completely ineffective. I wound up with a dime-sized ball of color in the corner of the bag and a dog who thought it was dance party time in the kitchen. No good at all.

So once I calmed the dog down I went with method number two; the food processor method. Again the instructions were very simple, just put the sugar and color in the food processor with the chopping blade and whir it up until the sugar is the color you want. Easy peasy, right? Wrong. Turns out it takes quite a bit more than the "drop or two" of color that I was instructed to use. Realistically, more like a full teaspoon to color 1/2 a cup of sugar. And it made a HUGE mess in the food processor. Only a bit of the sugar accepted the color, and then it gooped up on the edges of the bowl. I did find that if you leave the processor running for a bit then the caked on color begins to flake off the sides and reincorporates with the rest of the sugar, lending a bit of color to the whole batch. The real problem with this method is that between colors everything must be cleaned and absolutely dry before starting the next.

What I really learned from this experience is if I want colored cookies the better way is probably to make a glaze and dip them, rather than try to color the sugar itself. To do a glaze just put your sugar in a bowl with the color and just enough milk (just a teaspoon or two) to mix it into a liquid. Then either dip your cookies or put them on a rack and pour the glaze over them.