Peach Cookie (Pesche Dolci / Breskvice) Recipe (yields 30-35 cookies) Ingredients Dough 500 g flour 14 g baking powder pinch of salt 250 g butter, softened 135 g powdered sugar 2 large eggs and 1 yolk 2 tsp vanilla extract 100 g sour cream Zest of 1 lemon Filling Reserved broken up cookie crumbs 100 g toasted and ground walnuts, pecans and almonds 130 g apricot jam 2 tbsp cocoa powder 2 tbsp rum (or rum aroma and a little milk) Directions Making the dough Cream butter and powdered sugar until creamy, add lemon zest, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream and mix until smooth. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt, then add to the wet ingredients in 3 parts. Mix on low until a soft dough forms but don’t overmix. Wrap the dough, and chill for an hour. Lightly oil hands, roll dough into 17 g balls, place on parchment paper lined trays and flatten slightly with your thumb. Bake at 170-180°C (340-360°F) for around 15 minutes until the bottoms are lightly brown and the tops are still pale but not cracked, and a skewer comes out clean. While still warm, scoop out the centre of each cookie and reserve the crumbs for the filling. Making the filling Toast then ground the nuts, break up the reserved crumb with hand. Mix ingredients into a thick but spreadable paste and adjust ingredients to taste (add milk or jam depending on desired consistency). Assembly Pipe the filling into the empty cookie centres and gently press the two cookies together to form the peach. Make two or three dipping liquids: Yellow and orange: peach liqueur (or peach juice) with yellow and orange food colouring. Red: raspberry liqueur / Alchermes (or syrup) and red food colouring. Dip half of the cookie into the yellow, the other into the orange and finally the red liquid and let the excess drip off. Toss in granulated sugar (replace sugar if it gets too moist). Optionally serve with small mint leaves. Storage and rest Rest uncovered at least overnight (ideally for a day) on room temperature in a cold and dark place, then rest in a box. It can be eaten for up to a week.