Serbian Walnut Cookies Recipe
The Serbian Walnut cookies are best made days ahead so the flavor matures. While these cookies are wonderful sandwiched, they are also quite good on their own.
Servings: 24 cookies
Calories: 201kcal
Ingredients
Apricot Filling
- ¾ cup apricot preserves
- 1 ½ teaspoon gelatin
- 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
Serbian Walnut Cookies
- 1 cup walnuts (114 grams)
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened (114 grams)
- ⅓ cup + 1 T granulated sugar (75 grams)
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour (175 grams)
- 2 cups powdered sugar (260 grams)
Instructions
Apricot Filling
- This filling can be made days in advance and refrigerated.
- Place the apricot preserves in the bowl of a processor. Process until smooth.
- Dissolve the gelatin in the vinegar in a very small bowl.
- Heat the preserves just to a simmer. Remove from the heat. Tear the gelatin into about 6 pieces and immediately add it to the hot preserves. There is no need to liquify it first. The heat will do that. Wait for a minute or two until you can see the gelatin has liquified. Stir it into the preserves. Transfer to a small container and refrigerate until needed.
Serbian Walnut Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Place the walnuts on a rimmed baking sheet and toast for 7 to 10 minuts until fragrant and slightly browned. Cool completely.
- When cool, place the walnuts and flour in the bowl of a processor. Process until the nuts are finely ground and instinguishable. Set aside.
- Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a mixer. Beat until light.
- Add the egg yolk and vanilla and beat to combine.
- Add the flour mixture and beat on low just until completely incorporated. The dough should be good to roll out but if it is too soft, refrigerate briefly. Do not let it get too cold or it will be hard to roll.
- Place the dough between two large pieces of waxed paper. Make 4 or 5 indentations and then roll the dough to abut ¼" thick. With a 1 ½" round cutter, cut the cookies out, keeping them close together
- Remove the top piece of waxed paper and, keeping the cookies on the bottom pieces of paper, transfer the whole thing to a baking sheet. Freeze until rock hard.
- When frozen, simply punch them out and place them on a cookie sheet about 5 across and 7 down. Refreeze if necessary.
- Bake for 15 to 17 minutes from the frozen state until lightly browned and firm. Cool completely. These can be stored in an airtight container before filling for up to a week. The cookies can also be frozen, unbaked, wrapped well and kept for several months. Bake from the frozen state.
Assembly
- The cookies can be filled or left as single cookies. If sandwiching continue.
- Sift the powdered sugar into a medium size bowl. Set aside.
- Stir the filling vigorously to smooth it out. Turn half the cookies upside down and fill with about ¾ teaspoon apricot filling. Place the tops on the cookies.
- Allow the filled cookie to set up on a rack overnight to tighten the filling.
- If finishing with powdered sugar, place a cookie in the powdered sugar, coating both sides and rolling the edges in the sugar. Dust the tops with more powdered sugar.
- Store in an airtight container for a week or 10 days.
Notes
There is always an abundance of photos to guide you in the post above.
As always, I recommend using a scale for accuracy and consistency. Flour, in particular, is difficult to measure by volume. For my recipes, I use 140 grams per cup of unsifted all-purpose, bread or whole wheat flour and 125 grams of cake flour. Others may use different weights so use whatever they suggest.
______________________________________________________
Always toast the nuts. Untoasted nuts just don't have the punch that a few minutes in the oven gives them.
Make sure the nuts are completely cooled before using them. I generally toast the whole bag, re-bag it, mark it and put it in the freezer. That way, I don't have to wait for them. We used to toast 30# boxes of nuts at a time at the bakery and freeze them.
Always make sure if the nuts are to be finely ground, that flour or sugar is put in the processor with them so they don't turn into a paste - unless of course you are making a nut butter.
Make sure the cookies go into the oven very cold or frozen. Although I don't believe these would go out of shape, I do this with any cut out cookie.
For an in depth discussion about cut out cookies, see my post Cut Out Cookies using the Wax Paper Technique
Nutrition
Serving: 24cookies | Calories: 201kcal | Carbohydrates: 34g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 7g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 18mg | Sodium: 5mg | Potassium: 37mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 26g | Vitamin A: 145IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 10mg | Iron: 1mg
