When it comes to baking, my first thought is to usually use walnuts, because I love them so much. For me, I think they rank even higher than chocolate.
For these cookies, you have walnuts as filling between two layers of soft buttery crust, topped with a chocolate glaze. Allow 2-3 days before you enjoy them to their full potential. The recipe comes from the wonderful Hungarian cookbook “66 karácsonyi édesség” by Mari Lajos and Károly Hemző.
for the dough
unsalted butter – 150 g
powdered sugar – 150 g
vanilla sugar – 10 – 20 g
egg yolks – 2
rum – 2 tablespoons
all-purpose flour – 400 g
baking powder – 12 g
salt – a pinch
for the filling
milk – 10 ml
granulated sugar – 50 g
vanilla sugar – 10 – 20 g
zest of half a lemon
ground cinnamon – 1 teaspoon
ground walnut – 120 g
rum – 2 tablespoons
for the glaze
cocoa powder – 2 tablespoons
powdered sugar – 100 g
egg white – from half an egg
fresh lemon juice – 1 tablespoon
half or quarter walnut pieces for decoration – 40
Beat the butter with powdered sugar and vanilla sugar until creamy (8-10 minutes when using an electric mixer). Add the egg yolks, one at a time, then the rum. Mix in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Form a ball from the dough, wrap in plastic, and chill for 30 minutes.
For the filling, boil the milk with the granulated and vanilla sugars, lemon zest, and cinnamon in a small saucepan. Lower the temperature and stir in the ground walnuts. Cook for a minute, and then cool to room temperature. When it’s cool, add the rum.
Preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 °F). Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Roll out the dough to approximately 3 mm-thick on a lightly floured work surface. With a 4 cm diameter flower-shaped cookie cutter, cut individual pieces from the dough. The leftover dough should be gathered and rolled out again, and cut until all of it is used. Place the cookies on the baking sheets leaving some space between them – they will spread a little bit as they are baked. From time to time, you should dip the cookie cutter in flour before cutting, to ensure nice, clean cuts. Bake for approximately 10-12 minutes. Cool on the cookie sheets.
For the glaze, sift the cocoa powder together with the sugar. Whisk in the egg white and the lemon juice, and stir until it is incorporated. If it is needed, you can add a little more lemon juice. Dip half of the number of cookie pieces one by one into the glaze, then place them on the cookie sheet and lightly press a piece of walnut in the middle of the glaze. Put the cookies into the lukewarm oven that has been turned off, leaving the door open a little bit. The glaze should dry to a shiny color (15-20 minutes).
To assemble the cookies, put a little amount of the filling in the middle of an unglazed piece and cover with a glazed one gently pressing on it. Makes 40 cookies. Store in airtight containers placing parchment paper between the layers.
These are excellent!! Thank you for posting this recipe ….. it is much appreciated.
Steve is telling me that you plan to try these soon. Please let me know how they turn out.
Marta — I made these cookies for a Holiday Cookie exchange this year. They turned out perfect! In fact everyone thought I had bought them, rather than made them! I got lots of complements on the flavor of the filling.
The biggest challenge was when I rolled out the dough (it was a bit flaky so I had to be careful when cutting them and moving to the baking sheet). The recipe didn’t say when to add the 2 Tbsp. of Rum to the filling, so I added it when I added the ground walnuts, just before cooling the filling.
I used a fine microplane rotary shredder to get the walnuts to a fine sawdust size, which seemed like a lot of cranking, but really didn’t take too long at all.
These cookies take a fair amount of time, but if you love to bake, they yield a great result … and no one else will show up at a cookie exchange with these! As you noted, the flavor seems to develop and improve over a couple of days, so it’s a good idea to make them a couple of days ahead.
Thanks so much for this recipe. It is a keeper.
Dave, thank you very much for the comment. I am very happy that the cookies turned out great and you say the recipe is a keeper. Thanks for catching the omission about the rum. I made the correction in the instructions. The rum should be added into the filling when it’s cooled down, but nothing happens if you add it at a different time. Please let me know if you bake anything else from my recipes. It’s wonderful to get feedback. Happy new year and happy baking!