Kolatchke Cookies

Sorry for no post yesterday. My daughter has another event for 130 people on Thursday and I have been nonstop cooking and baking. They just named her events as one of the top hot tickets in DC. Way to go my daughter! Her theme is cherry blossoms so I made a lot of things with cherries. I saw these on Martha the other day and though Martha used apricots, I decided to make cherry pie filling and they turned out great. Kolatchkes are traditional Polish breakfast rolls and these are the cookie version of them.


For the recipe I am giving you, you will only need one can of tart cherries.


Drain them and add back 3 T. of the liquid. Place them in a pot with 3/4 C. of sugar, 2 tsp. lemon juice and 3 T. corn starch. Bring to a boil stirring and cook until it thickens. Remove from the heat. Add 1 tsp. of almond extract and 1 T. butter. Add some red food coloring if you want it to be really red.


When you first start to cook it, the liquid will be opaque.


Once they begin to thicken, the liquid will be transparent.


For the pastry, mix 1/4 C. sour cream with 2 1/4 tsp. rapid rise yeast. Let it sit for 10 minutes. Add 1 egg to it and beat it a bit. In the bowl of your food processor, add 2 cups of flour. Add 2 sticks of cold butter cut into small cubes. Pulse the processor until the butter cuts into the flour and forms a grainy mix. Add the yeast mixture and pulse just until the dough comes together.


Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut into squares. You can cut circles but it just wastes dough. Let the squares sit for 15 minutes. Then press a finger print into the middle of each square.


Place a couple cherries in each finger print. Bake these at 400 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Mine baked for 14 minutes.


Remove them to racks to cool.


Drizzle them with a glaze made from confectioners sugar and milk. If you use a whisk to drizzle the glaze it makes it quite easy. I baked 6 batches of these this morning.