| Recipe: |
Recipe originally came from Bea's Grandmother, Ann Rusnak.
Bea makes hers using a flower-shaped cookie cutter, though round or other round-ish shape would work just fine.
8 c all-purpose flour
2 1/3 cups Crisco
1/2 lb butter at room temperature
1 c sugar
2 t salt
4 eggs, separated (yolks for cookie dough, whites for brushing tops)
1 whole egg
1 t vanilla
2 T milk
1 large jar apricot preserves
1 c chopped nuts - pecans
Preheat oven to 375°F.
Place flour, Crisco, butter, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Use pastry cutter to cut butter and Crisco into flour. Mix well. Add egg yolks, egg, vanilla, and milk. Mix with hands until dough is formed.
Roll out dough about 1/4" thick (Bryce rolls it thinner because each cookie is two layers thick). Cut two flowers for each cookie. Cut small circle out of the center of one.
Beat egg whites until frothy.
Place solid layers on cookie sheet and top with cutout layers. Fill cutouts with preserves and brush with beaten egg whites. Sprinkle with chopped nuts.
Bake for 10-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove to cloth-covered table to cool.
-------------------
Along with the recipe came the following handwritten notes:
A few hints on the filled Christmas cookies.
The dough has to be at room temperature when you roll it. It is very rich so it doesn't want to stick together very well. Just roll out a large handful at a time. If you put it between two sheets of plastic wrap before you start to roll it will hold together real well. It also saves from adding a lot of extra flour. I just remove the top sheet of plastic wrap and cut out the dough. It's not hard to remove the cookies with the bottom layer of plastic wrap in place. You may have to replace the bottom layer of plastic wrap with the next rolling because sometimes it gets torn.
You can get about 15 cookies to a cookie sheet because they do not expand when they are baked.
The egg whites can be beaten by hand or with a hand beater. They need to be fluffy. The egg whites are what makes the cookies brown. You may have to rebeat them each time you use them because they do get flat standing while you are fixing the next pan of cookies. |
