ILLINOIS-CREAM CHEESE KOLACKY COOKIES

Here is the next installment from our series: 

OUR COOKIE NATION.

  This was a simple cookie to make, with only 5 ingredients (love this), but a small heads up, it takes 2 days to make...you pull together the dough, refrigerate overnight, and then roll out and bake the next day.

 Grade: D

 CREAM CHEESE KOLACKY

3 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 c. all purpose flour

1/2 c. any flavor fruit jam

1/3 c. confectioners sugar, for decoration

Mix the cream cheese and butter until smooth.  Add flour slowly until well blended.  shape into a ball and chill overnight or for several hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Roll the dough out to 1/8" thickness, on a floured board.  Cut into 2 1/2" squares, place 1/2 tsp. jam in the center. 

 Overlap opposite corners of the dough and pinch together. Place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

 Cool, then dust with confectioners sugar.

Makes approx. 24 cookies.

I used Blackberry Jam, a favorite with my family

My family were not fans of this cookie. They all mentioned that the cookie should be a little sweeter.  I thought the cookie was OK, and it might be nice with a cup of tea or coffee.

A few notes from me:  let the dough stand 15-20 minutes before rolling out.  It will make the process so much easier. Work quickly to form the cookies, or the dough becomes very soft and is harder to transfer to the baking sheet. 

Be sure you pinch the corners together well, so that the cookie retains it shape during baking (notice that most of my popped back open).

And, my cookies took about 15 minutes to bake, and after eating a couple I realized they could have baked a little longer, as the dough was a little under done in the center of the cookie.

As a final note, I will probably not make this particular recipe again, but if I find a cookie that is similar (because any recipe with cream cheese in it, is my kind of recipe), with a bit sweeter dough (for the "others"), it will go on the "to make" list, because I likec the combination of cream cheese dough and blackberry jam.

Recipe source: ALLRECIPES.COM