So I have my yummy homemade cottage cheese (see previous post) and we have been experimenting with different flavors and we have concluded we all like two flavors best when using as a cracker/bread snack spread. A tiny dash of applewood smoked salt (flavor one), and a mixture of Italian spices (ours are from our garden and dried so maybe try fresh if you don’t have access to freshly dried) with a tiny dash of salt for the second flavor… this one you need to leaving in the fridge over night so the spices can marinate (for lack of a better word lol) and really flavor the cheese. If the cheese is too dry add a bit (about a teaspoon at max) of milk/half and half/ cream… whatever you have on hand 🙂
Now to the cookies!!!
I’m using 2 cups flour, 1 cup cold butter, 1 cup of the homemade cottage cheese in a food processor to make the dough. Adding enough whipping cream to make a thick dough as it is mixing. I used about 1/2 cup of cream… maybe 3/4 cup. Just pour a small amount at a time and let it mix until you get a nice firm dough. Now let it sit in the fridge for an hour.
Note: The extra cream is needed to form the dough because the homemade cottage cheese has been drained from the whey in the process of making it. If you are using store bought cottage cheese you probably won’t need much if any cream because of the creamy liquid already in the cottage cheese.
I want a nice stiff dough for these little cookies because I’m going to stuff them with some raspberry jam! Get the good jam. No corn syrup or other nasty stuff in the ingredients list. Organic if possible. Jam with just plain old raspberries, sugar, and pectin. The old fashioned kind. Get some from the farmers market if you can, or make some! Even better! (Did you know you can also make your own pectin from citrus peels?… yeah you can google that one lol but that’s the old fashioned all natural way to make it!) if you don’t like raspberry (some people don’t because of the seeds).. try blueberry! Black berry would work too!
Back to the dough! After chilling the dough should be nice and stiff. You can roll it out and get fancy if you want… but I’m going to do it like my mamaw! Grab a small ball of dough, pat it flat, (roll it with the pastry roller if you have one) put a spoon full of jam in the middle, fold in half, use a small drinking glass to cut the edges in a circle, and use a fork to smoosh down the open sides.
I have a small pastry roller that I use if I need to help smooth out the patted down dough (like making a hamburger patty really… but thinner). For me it’s easier to make them this way (small individual cookies one at a time) because a big rolling pin (trying to roll out the big batch of dough all at once) just doesn’t work with my neck, back, and hand problems. But do what’s easiest for you. There is no right or wrong way to do this folks!
Some helpful hints: The goal is to not let the butter melt while you are forming the cookies! So don’t pat the dough for too long or the heat from your hands will melt the butter and make the dough too gooey. If you happen to have a small marble cutting board you can fit in the fridge or freezer to get it nice and cold… do so and work on the cold surface to keep the dough nice and cold while you are working on forming the cookies!
So get your items you need to form the cookies ready while the dough is chilling 🙂 here are mine! Plus some extra flour to throw on my (currently chilling in the freezer) marble cutting board.
so… I know what you are thinking! “But wait! There isn’t any sugar in the cookie dough so how can it be cookies?!?!” … am I right? That my friends is why you buy the good fruit jam! It has all the sugar and flavor you need. You can think of it as a mini pie if you would rather. We used to make larger versions of these when I was a kid but they were deep fried instead of baked (and we know all that grease is horrible for the waistline lol) and we used apple pie filling (another option I forgot to mention above) and they were called “apple fritters” so if you’d like you can call these “mini fruit fritters” Lol Besides we are going to drizzle some yummy sugary stuff on top before we serve them! But we aren’t there yet…
They puff up so pretty! I decided to make a small batch of blueberry filled ones lol after talking about blueberries above. I just marked them with the fork on the folded side so people could tell which is which 🙂
My blue berry jam was a bit more liquidy than the raspberry stuff so the blueberry ones (as expected) got a bit messy in the baking process.
And I had just enough dough left over to make three little lonely blackberry ones for hubby and I to sample after dinner tonight. Since the cookies/fritters are intended for a pot luck luncheon I won’t take the black berry ones because there wasn’t enough dough to really use the drinking glass to cut the shape and make them pretty. So those are gonna be our “ugly” treats tonight lol
So now for the drizzly stuff. It’s basically the same way you make cake icing really. Powdered sugar, a dash of vanilla extract (or whatever extract flavor you prefer, they make tons of different flavors) , and add milk SLOWLY until it gets to the consistency you want. If you want thick, to spread on top with a knife, then use less milk. If you want thin, so you can drizzle it with a spoon, then use a tad bit more milk. Go slow with adding the milk because a little goes a long way. Basically add it by the spoonful and stir. If you have never made icing before just giggle it… there are tons of directions out there already and it is so simple you will probably smack your forehead lol.
For my cookies I want thin (which when it dries will look like the white drizzle on top of a pop tart). Which I can lightly drizzle with a spoon. This can be done ahead of time and it will dry out a bit making the tops of the cookies look very pretty and adding a bit more sugary taste. Or you can just leave the drizzle in a bowl with a spoon and let your guests put their own topping on. Some people may not want the extra sugar. Since my luncheon is with “older ladies” lol (including myself in that classification so no I’m not calling them old and leaving myself out lol) and if they are like me… trying to cut out as much sugar as possible lol… I’m going to put the drizzle topping in a self serve bowl with a serving spoon.
Plain is really good! But it all comes down to how yummy is the jam you are using. Delicious!
Since it’s super windy and chilly out and today is Halloween it’s been a perfect day for making cookies (or mini fruit fritters… whatever you want to call them lol). Since Conestoga Chuck and his sister lil bit are getting ready for tonight’s trick or treat goblins we want to wish everyone a happy Halloween! From my favorite hot dog and little cow girl 🙂
Conestoga Chuck 