Grandma's apricot filled cookies - Good Taste is the Worst Vice

Peach ice cream… pink peppermints… and apricot filled cookies with a subtle hint of almond – these flavors will always remind me of my grandparents in Pennsylvania.

Recently I was feeling nostalgic and dug up the recipe to make a batch of cookies.

They’re really more like snack cakes, two soft layers with apricot jam between. And they’re pretty substantially sized, so one cookie makes for a generous serving.

It’s an old fashioned recipe, calling for shortening (I used all butter) and a combination of baking soda and cream of tartar in lieu of baking powder. It also calls for a whopping 7 cups of flour, yielding an enormous amount of stiff, sticky dough. My KitchenAid mixer could barely handle it – how on earth did my grandmother mix it all by hand? She must have had some serious arm muscles.

My sister framed our grandmother’s original, handwritten recipe

Once the dough is mixed, the complicated part of the operation begins: rolling, cutting, and assembling the cookies.

It takes some effort to get the dough worked into supple pliability – it helps to chill it a bit and to use lots of flour when rolling. I actually found that the dough was easiest to work with after I had chilled it and then let it warm back up on the counter for a while. But beware, if it gets too warm it becomes nearly impossible to transfer the dough rounds onto baking sheets without them stretching into Dali-esque shapes.

I ended up frazzled, sticky with jam, and liberally covered with flour, but also with sheets of cookies ready for the oven. Phew!

This was a bit of a tricky baking project for me – but the cookies brought back memories for sure. And I popped some of the extras into the freezer to take to my father when I visit him later this month, so that he can enjoy them too!

Grandma’s apricot filled cookies
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup skim milk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp baking soda, mixed with 3 tsp warm water
2 tsp cream of tartar
7 cups flour
1 jar apricot preserves

Beat butter and brown sugar in stand mixer until incorporated. Add milk, eggs, extracts, baking soda/water, and cream of tartar and continue beating for a few seconds. Mixture will look broken.

Add flour cup by cup, continuing to beat on low speed between each addition. When dough is fully mixed, cover bowl and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees while dough is chilling.

Working in batches, roll out dough to just under 1/4 inch. (The dough is sticky at first, but becomes more supple with a bit of kneading and plenty of flour. You may need to play with the temperature of the dough to find the optimal texture to work with.)

Cut into circles with 3.5″ cutter and place half on baking sheet (about 8 per sheet). Put a spoonful of apricot preserves in the center of each. Cut center hole from other half of circles, using 1.5″ cutter, and lay atop the jam-topped circles. For neater-looking finished cookies, make sure the preserves extend under the edges of the top circles. Repeat with remaining dough.

Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet, then remove to rack to cool.

Makes 32 generously-sized cookies. Recipe may be halved – which I recommend unless you want cookies for an army! They also freeze well.

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