❤ Easy Kolacky Christmas Recipe ❤
This recipe for round Eastern European kolacky uses baking powder, cream cheese, and butter in the dough to make a flaky pastry topped with sweet fruit preserves or sweet cheese.
These pastries are also spelled kołaczki in Polish. They can be made in a wide variety of shapes, including foldovers and rolls filled with fruit preserves. This recipe takes the easier, but still traditional, route and makes a pastry simply topped with the preserves or sweet cheese filling as you desire. You can use a round cookie cutter as shown or make them into squares, diamonds, or other shapes.
You’ll have to plan ahead a little, as you’ll need to refrigerate the dough for a few hours or overnight before you roll it out, top it, and bake it. That can make it a project to complete with your kids or grandkids. Children enjoy making the thumbprint in the cookies where you’ll add the sweet filling.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup butter
- 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 (12.5 ounce) can apricot fruit filling (such as Solo(R))
- 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar for dusting
DIRECTIONS
- Place the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl; beat with electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Beat 1/2 cup of confectioners’ sugar into the butter mixture. Slowly beat in the flour; mix well. Cover bowl and refrigerate at least 3 hours, or overnight.
- Preheat an oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- On a well floured board, roll out chilled dough to 1/8 inch. Use a pizza wheel to cut dough into 2 1/2 inch squares. Spoon approximately 2 teaspoons of filling in the center of each square; do not overfill. Fold opposite corners of each square into the middle to encase dough, pinching dough together in center. Filling should peek out a little at each end. Transfer cookies to an ungreased baking sheet.
- Bake the kolacky in the preheated oven until set but not brown, about 12 minutes. Remove to racks to cool. Dust cooled kolacky with remaining powdered sugar.