Breskvice

Peach Cookies

    BRESKVE

     3 cubes butter                                  3 C sugar

     1 Tbsp vanilla                                   rind of 1 lemon

     2 tsp baking powder                         2 Tbsp rum or brandy

     2 tsp baking soda                             dash of salt

     App 7 cups flour                                4 eggs

     Strawberry jam                                 Hershey’s cocoa

     More sugar                                        and more sugar

     Mix butter and 3 C sugar, add baking powder, baking soda and eggs.  Mix thoroughly, cover with a clean cloth and let sit for 2 hours.  Add vanilla, salt, lemon rind.  Start adding flour a cup at a time.  Towards the end I put it on a board and knead in the rest of the flour.  Preheat oven to 350.  Form dough into small balls and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 18-20 minutes.  They should be golden but not brown.  Cool about 5 minutes.  Using a paring knife dig out the bottom of each cookie, saving the crumbs.  Don’t worry if you break some , and if you don’t break any your will need to add about 6 cookies to the crumbs.   Put the cookie crumbs in a food processor and pulsate until ground.  Add rum, about  ½ c jam, 3 heaping soup spoons of cocoa and ¼ c sugar.  Mix.  Your filling should be the consistency of jam, spreadable but not runny.

     Fill each cookie half with the spread and put 2 cookies together to form a ball.  They should stick together easily.

     Decorating:  fill 3 cups or glasses with water, add food coloring to each – yellow, red and green.  Make it as dark as you like.  Dip a third of each cookie into each of the colors and set on paper towels for about 5 minutes then roll each in sugar and place on a cookie sheet to dry.  Don’t let them touch.  The next day turn the cookies over so they dry evenly.  After 2 days they should be ok to eat or freeze. 

Enjoy – Marija Mataja