A few years ago for my birthday I received one of the best presents—two cooking classes at the local grocery/market with my mom. The first class was for Thanksgiving Pies and the second was German Holiday Cookies. Both were fantastic but I loved the second class because of my own Swiss heritage and many of the recipes reminded me of my grandmother’s Christmas cookies.
All of the participants were divided into pairs and worked on baking one recipe (believe there were 12 recipes in total). At the end we all got to take home a few of each. The cookie my mom and I made was Hildabrötchen – or Shortbread with Jam. We both loved the simplicity of the cookie and have made it during our Annual Bake Day since taking the class.
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour 10.5 oz
- ½ cup sugar 4 oz
- Smidge of Vanilla ½ tsp? or leave out
- ½ cup + 2 Tbsp Butter 5 oz or 1.25 sticks
- Jam your choice of flavor—we use Raspberry!
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients with mixer or food processor. If dough is dry and crumbly, knead with hands until mixed completely.
- Refrigerate until cool/firm—but be careful because it will become as hard as a rock when left too long! (will soften when worked over)
- Roll out dough to about ¼ inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters. If you want your jam to peek through, use a smaller cookie cutter to cut the middle of the cookies. I use the circle opening of a frosting tip for my middle hole!
- Place on a buttered/sprayed baking sheet. The cookies won’t expand much in the oven
- Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Watch these puppies as they brown quickly!
Assembly:
- Heat jam in saucepan until thinned and easily spreadable
- Spoon jam onto bottom cookie (without the hole) and sandwich with the top cookie (with the hole)
- Dust cookies lightly with powdered sugar (also pretty with raw sugar granules)
Notes
Yields two dozenish small cookies (remember you’re halving the amount when combine top and bottom!)
Perfect for those who don’t have an extreme sweet tooth—subtle but yummy! If you make these, let me know how they turn out.
Am I missing something?? Where is the recipe for the shortbread cookies pictured on facebook?? They were not cookie cutter jam filled, the ones pictured appeared to be put thru a cookie press.