I have a very dear friend that has asked me to make raisin filled cookies like her grandmother used to make but, she doesn't have the recipe.
I've never had anything of the such and I detest raisins so I'm not a good one to find the best recipe.
She is so close to me (we traveled to Eurpore together a couple of years ago). I would love to produce that perfect cookie for her.
Anybody had that kind of cookie? Anyone have a recipe they would share?
well, a google search on fig newton raisins returned lots of recipes.
and in most, it looked like you could do the filling using just raisins.
noted many seemed to be Italian in origin.
and may were bar cookie recipes.
Time to ask your friend for a more specific description of what cookie was like.
She may mean cuccidati, which are kind of a little tubular nugget of cookie stuffed with jam made of raisins, figs and spices...sometimes a little glaze on top. If that's the case, I have a really good recipe at home. I can post it tonight if you want it.
She may also mean a kind of raisin cracker they used to sell as a packaged cookie in markets. They were a raisin jam sandwiched between two thin, crisp, cracker-like cookies. I have a recipe for those as well.
This one?
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Marcia Adam's Old-Fashioned Raisin Filled Cookies
Cookie Dough:
3 1/2 cup Unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Salt
2/3 cup Butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed Brown sugar
3/4 cup Granulated white sugar
2 large Eggs
1/3 cup Milk
RAISIN FILLING:
1 cup firmly packed Brown sugar
1 1/2 cups Raisins (may need 1 3/4 cups)
1 cup Water
1 tsp Lemon juice
1 dash Salt
1 Tb Cornstarch
1 1/4 tsp Cornstarch
2 Tb Water
1/2 cup Chopped nuts
Prepare the cookie dough first. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together; set aside. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars thoroughly. Add the eggs, milk and vanilla; beat at high speed for 2 min. Lower the speed and add the flour mixture gradually. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
To prepare the raisin filling, grind the raisins. You should have 1 cup of ground raisins. In a medium saucepan combine raisins, brown sugar, water, salt and lemon juice. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 min.
Combine the 2T of water and cornstarch, use to thicken the raisin mixture. when cool stir in the nuts.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface until thin (1/8 in).Cut into 2 3/4 inch rounds with a cookie cutter.
Place the rounds on a oiled cookie sheet.
Place a heaping tsp of filling mixture on the cookie round, top with another round, crimp the edges closed. Bake at 350 F. for exactly 8 minutes. The cookies will be pale yellow. Allow cookies to remain on cookie sheet until almost cool.
Cooking from Quilt Country by Marcia Adams.
Here's the recipe my Nana used to make. She just knew how to make them, so when it came to writing it down, it is a little "cryptic;" hope you can follow...
Raisin-Filled cookies
2 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 c. shortening
1 c. sour milk (buttermilk is best)
2 tsp. vanilla
4 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
7 c. sifted flour (hold about 2 c. out for rolling out a VERY SOFT dough!)
Mix as for other rolled cookies. The dough will be very sticky. (dough can be chilled before rolling). Roll quite thin (1/4 inch-ish) and cut with round cutter (about 2-3 inch diam.). Place plain rounds on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Drop a small teaspoonful of filling (below) in the center of each. Cover with another round and push the edges together to seal in the juicy filling.
Bake about 10-15 mins at 350 degrees. Watch carefully until you get teh timing right for your cookie sheet and oven.
Filling
2 c. raisins, chopped
2 Tbsp. flour
1 c. sugar
1 c. nuts (optional)
Cook until thick. May add vanilla after cooking (about 1 tsp.)
Good luck!
These both sound so yummy I'm making out a shopping list so I can whip some up later!
Definitely ground - that's the only way to go as far as my family is concerned.
Another tip - I have a special cookie cutter for this - it's kind of tapered and fluted on the bottom to seal the filling in. One thing we've learned is to just barely mark the cookie dough, use a knife to cut between every other cookie, fill the one and pull the dough over top and THEN use the cutter to cut through both - it seals the filling in. Don't forget to cut a steam hole.
Yum, now I'm hungry.
I recently made my grandma's recipe for these cookies. I found my small food processor ground those raisins up great! I remember her using a hand grinder and turning the crank. The clean up of that machine was a mess! Often wish she was here with me to enjoy and the modern equipment we have available.
She sprinkled sugar on them before baking. I put the first cookie on the sheet, a little more than a teaspoon of filling on then the second cookie on top. I found using my gumpaste ball tool worked great to seal the edges of the cookies.
Yum!
Jackie
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