Gothenburgers

When most people prepare for the holidays, they are concerned about making an impression as well as making the event memorable for years to come. These little pastries are sure to do both in a very good way.

With the beautiful golden piped edge and the marbled center, they are a stunner for the dessert table. Beware, however, that the inviting appearance will insure that your guests will be reaching for one of these to eat first.

One bite reveals a buttery base with a crunchy edge and smooth filling that coats the base. Each of these textures hold a rich almond flavor. Topping it off is a sweet raspberry/icing swirl and a touch of chocolate. All of those attributes makes them worthy of the holiday receipt vault. This is where are the special recipes lie that only come out once a year and are requested every year.

Make a delicious holiday memory this season by creating these stunning pastry-like cookies, named after the second largest city in Sweden, Gothenburg. This recipe makes about 24 pastries that are 3 1/2 inches in diameter.

Gothenburgers
adapted from Swedish Cakes and Cookies

Ingredients/Edged Base
1/2 an egg
1 egg white
7 oz almond paste
5 tbs butter
2 tbs sugar
3/4 cup flour

Ingredients/Filling and Garnish
1 egg (whisked)

3 tbs butter
4 oz almond paste
2-3 tsp water
raspberry jelly
3 oz semi sweet chocolate
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Prepare 2 baking sheets by lining with parchment paper.

To form the dough, cream together the butter and sugar in a medium size bowl. Beat in the 1/2 of egg. Add the flour and fold in, using a wooden spoon. Mixture should form a ball of dough. Flatten the dough into a thick disk and cover with plastic wrap. Place in refrigerator to chill for about 1/2 an hour. 

For the piped almond edge, fill a small bowl with the egg white. Take out a grater and grate the 7 oz of the almond paste into the egg white. Beat the two together until smooth, using a hand mixer on medium high speed. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees before you make the filling. Start on the filling by beating the butter in a bowl until smooth, set aside. Using another bowl, grate 4 oz of almond paste into the bowl. Add half of the grated almond paste to the butter and beat for 30 seconds.Then beat in the egg for another 30 seconds. Lastly, add the reset of the grated almond paste and beat until smooth.

Dust a flat surface lightly with flour and also dust a rolling pin. Prepare a piping bag with star tip. Place a cooling rack on the counter as well as a sheet of wax paper.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll out onto the floured, flat surface. Cut dough into round circles, about 3 1/2 to 3 3/4 inch in diameter and place on baking sheet. Using a butter knife, smooth the filling evenly onto the circles, leaving a border of 1/4 of an inch.

Once all the filling has covered the circles, fill the piping bag with the almond paste/egg white blend and pipe around the edge of the pastry. Place pan in oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes or until edge turns a light golden hue.

Place baking sheet on rack and let cookies cool for about 2 minutes. Transfer from baking sheet to cooling rack. Once completely cool, spread about 1 1/2 teaspoons of raspberry preserves over the filling, keeping clear of the almond piped border. 

In a small bowl, sift the powdered sugar and add the water by teaspoons, mixing after each addition. The icing should be the consistency of cookie icing not cake frosting. Once blended, swirl the icing into the raspberry topping forming a marbling appearance. Again, avoid the piped border. Let the cookies set for about 5 minutes for the topping to solidify more. Take a sharp knife and cut each in half.

Set up a small double boiler and melt the chocolate. Coat the cut edge of each cookie in the melted chocolate and place on wax paper. Give time for the chocolate to set before serving or storing.

Tips and Notes:
1. I used seedless raspberry preserves and doubled the batch of icing.

2. I found that using a knife to coat the chocolate on the cookie edge made for a more even finish.It also helps when you get down the the last of the melted chocolate.

3. There are some strange measurements since this recipe originated from Sweden, such as the 1/2 egg and 7 oz of almond paste (my can was 8 oz). For the egg, whisk a whole egg and measure out 2 tablespoons for your ingredient for the dough base. The almond paste I weighed to eliminate the extra  1/oz.

4. For less leftover ingredients, double the whole recipe.



                                           **LAST YEAR: Aunt Bill's Brown Candy**

Dutch Love Letter Cookies

With Valentine's coming up, I decided to take on a project.  Turning a tasty cookie recipe that is very basic in appearance to something more pleasing to the eye.  Granted these were not the easiest things to form and did take some practice batches, but I am happy with the end result.  If you are short on time, you can always just do these in logs or the "s" shape as the recipe instructs.

The cookies have a flaky, crunchy exterior with an almond paste filling.  The exterior is somewhat made like pastry dough, using water. Instead I used chocolate liqueur in its place.  However, there was no trace of this flavor in the cookie after baked.  Perhaps with something stronger like rum or bourbon, the flavor may remain.  I still want to experiment some more on these.  With regard to the the shaping of the dough, the filling does not ooze out when baking so cracks in the cookie dough is not a disaster.

The original recipe states to form these in large "S" shapes, brush with an egg wash and sprinkle with sugar.  As you can see, I dipped these in chocolate instead.  The recipe in its original state is below, but I encourage you experiment and add your own spin.  In making the large "S" shapes as per the recipe, it yields 16 cookies and takes about 2 1/2 hours to complete the process.

Dutch Love Letter Cookies
adapted from 100 Great Cookie Recipes/Ladies Home Journal

Ingredients/Cookie Crust
1 cup or 2 sticks cold butter, cubed
1 egg yolk
6-7 tbs ice water
3 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt

Ingredients/Filling
1/4 tsp grated lemon peel
8 oz can almond paste or 7 oz tube
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg

Ingredients/ Topping
1 egg white
2 tbs sugar

Sift together the flour and salt.  Then cut in butter with pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture is crumbly.  In a separate small bowl, whisk together 1 egg yolk and 2 tbs water. Drizzle mixture into the sifted ingredients and toss together with a large fork.  Add one tbs of water and toss together.  Repeat with additional tbs of water until the mixture comes together like pastry dough.

Separate dough into 4 equal sizes.  Place a square on lightly dusted wax paper and form into a 4 inch square.  Repeat with the other lumps of dough.  Peel wax paper off of squares and completely enclose in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for 1 hour or overnight.

During chilling time, prepare the filling by beating together all 4 ingredients listed above.  Once it is blended into a fluffy mixture, scrape out of bowl with a spatula and transfer into a plastic zip lock bag.  Seal and chill for one hour or overnight.

After the chilling time, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Lay a 20 inch piece of wax paper on a flat surface and lightly dust with flour.  Remove one pastry square from the refrigerator.  Test the dough by kneading to make sure it is can be rolled out without breaking.   Once it becomes pliable, roll into a 9 1/2 inch square about 1/8 inch thick. 

Trim the edges until you have a straight edged, 9 inch square.  Cut into 4 strips, each measuring 2 1/4 by 9 inches.  Brush each strip with water.  Take filling out of refrigerator and cut off a small section of the corner of the bag.  Then pipe 1/2 inch strip lengthwise down the center of the dough, starting 1/2 below small top of strip and ending 1/2 above bottom of strip.  Roll up pastry strips lengthwise and crimp seam and ends.  Place seam side down on baking sheet in the shape of an "S".

Brush top with egg white and sprinkle with sugar.  Continue with the forming of the 3 remaining strips for this pastry dough and sugarcoat as instructed.  Repeat the rolling, forming and topping instructions for the remaining 3 squares of pastry dough in the refrigerator.

Cookies should bake for about 20 minutes.  The finished letters should have a slightly golden hue on the edges. Let cookies cool on pans for 2 minutes then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.
                                     **LAST YEAR: Lemon Limoncello Cupcakes**