Molly Cookie

Tea Cake Cookies

Dec 24, 2009 Cookies, Desserts, Food Things

Every year my dad asks for Kalacky cookies around Christmas time. When we make our list of holiday treats to make he always throws those in. My mom makes them for him every year, and I’m pretty sure he’s the only one who eats them. It’s not that we don’t like them necessarily, it’s just that they weren’t loved by anyone but him, but he loves them so much that my mom makes them for him year after year. She’s a good wife.

This year, when we were making our list my dad reminded us about the Kalacky cookies, and we smiled and nodded and then decided to make this recipe instead. These cookies have the same feel as Kalacky cookies with the fruit-filled center, but they don’t have the cream cheese in the cookie dough. This cookie dough is marvelous, more like a butter cookie, and the fruit filling fits perfectly with the new dough.

I found this recipe on Epicurious.com, and I wanted to show you the picture that made me want to make them. My cookies didn’t end up looking as gloriously beautiful as these cookies did, but if you have the patience to sit down and line the top of each with colored sugar, your cookies could look something like this (photo from Epicurious.com):

Ours were still beautiful and tasted amazing. The real test was to see if my dad thought they were good enough to replace his Kalacky cookies. We gave him a plate, and he ate them immediately, then came in the kitchen to get a few more. A few minutes later a friend called him on the phone and he told her to come over because we had made some cookies that were “like Kalacky cookies except for better.”

I think that was a pretty good review coming from him.

Tea Cake Cookies

Ingredients

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups (21/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons whole milk
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel *Molly Note: I used about half this much. I didn’t really want the cookies to taste like lemon, just to have a hint of lemon. It worked great.
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• Nonstick vegetable oil spray
• Assorted decorations (such as powdered sugar, icing, colored sugar crystals, and edible glitter) *Molly Note: I thought the powdered sugar tasted the best, but the sugar looks the prettiest

• 2/3 cup preserves (such as apricot, seedless raspberry, or seedless blackberry) *Molly Note: Raspberry was my favorite. We used a can of Solo pie filling instead of preserves because we baked the cookies with the filling already in place. If you go by the recipe by Epicurious, regular preserves would be fine. We wanted to bake the cookies with the preserves in place, so regular preserves would end up melting all over the cookie. The pie filling worked great.
  

Whisk flour and salt in medium bowl to blend well. Using electric mixer, beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in milk, lemon peel, and vanilla extract. Add flour mixture and beat until blended. Gather dough into ball; divide in half. Flatten into disks. Wrap in plastic and chill at least 2 hours. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled. Let soften slightly before rolling out.)

Roll out each dough disk between sheets of waxed paper to 14×11-inch rectangle, occasionally lifting waxed paper to smooth out wrinkles. Refrigerate dough on baking sheets, still between sheets of waxed paper, until cold and firm, about 30 minutes. Place 1 dough piece on work surface. Peel off top sheet of waxed paper. Press same waxed paper gently back onto dough. Turn dough over (still between waxed paper sheets). Peel off top sheet of waxed paper and discard. Using 2 1/4-inch scalloped round cutter and with dough still on waxed paper bottom, cut out cookies. Using 1- to 1 1/4-inch scalloped round cutter, cut out center from half of cookies. Gather dough centers and excess dough around cutouts; shape excess dough into disk and chill. Slide waxed paper with cutouts onto baking sheet and chill. Repeat with remaining dough disk, cutting out rounds, cutting centers from half of rounds to make top rings, and gathering and chilling excess dough. Roll out excess dough between sheets of waxed paper, making more cookie bottoms and top rings. Repeat rolling and cutting until all of dough is used.

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Spray 2 large baking sheets with nonstick spray. Using metal spatula to lift cutouts from waxed paper, transfer cookie bottoms to 1 prepared sheet and top rings to second sheet, spacing slightly apart (cookies spread very little). Sprinkle some top rings with colored sugar crystals (or leave plain to decorate later). Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until pale golden, about 8 minutes. Cool cookies on baking sheets 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks; cool completely. **Molly Note: We didn’t bake each layer separately. We put them together, with the filling, before baking them. We thought they would hold together better that way. We just baked them for about 13 minutes instead of 8, already assembled. Then all you have to do when they come out of the oven is sprinkle them with powdered sugar if you haven’t already sugared them. Here’s what it looked like before we baked them:

Arrange cookie bottoms on work surface. Spread each with 1 teaspoon preserves. Sift powdered sugar over plain cookie rings or decorate with icing and sugar crystals or edible glitter as desired. Press 1 top ring onto each prepared cookie bottom. (Cookies can be made 3 days ahead. Store airtight between sheets of waxed paper in refrigerator.)