Raspberry Crescents

My Best friend from College, the lovely Natasha, was in town this weekend and we decided (weeks ahead of time) to have a little baking date during her stay. After a quick trip to the grocery store for supplies, we settled on a slightly experimental cookie creation, with a sugar cookie base and a raspberry filling.

Naturally, we enjoyed some delicious Brie and French Baguette during the process. Oh and maybe a little bit of wine too.

Ingredients:

2/3 cup butter

1 cup sugar

dash salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups flour

filling:

4 ounces raspberry preserves

1 tablespoon orange liquor

a few dashes of cinnamon sugar

(This recipe originally called for apple butter for the filling, but we thought the raspberry preserves looked more inviting, and decided to wing it)

First cream together the butter and sugar in your electric mixer. Then, gaze longingly at your baking powder, as pictured below.

Haha, Add in the baking powder and salt. Mix for a bit, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Then add in your eggs and vanilla. Mix until smoothly blended.

Next, add in your flour a little bit at a time. careful not to overmix your dough.

Viola.

Roll your dough into two equal balls, and chill. The recipe said to chill this for at least 3 hours, but we just stuck it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. It worked out quite well.

When your dough is chilled, bust out your rolling pin. On a lightly flour surface, roll out your dough to about 1/4 of an inch thick, or to whatever looks good to you. Use a 2-inch round scalloped cookie cutter to cut out little circles of deliciousness.


Place your cookie circles with their floured sides facing up. This will be the inside of the cookie, so the pretty side will be showing.

At this point, Natasha pondered our filling experiment over a glass of Cabernet.

She came up with this. Quite tasty.

Add a scant amount of the filling to the middle of each cookie circle. We probably could have added a bit more, but we tried to avoid jam explosions.

We decided to REALLY go crazy and add some brie in the middle of a couple of them. Unfortunately, as this blog is being written, I have yet to find a secret hidden brie treasure, as I accidentally mixed them all in together when I took the finished cookies out of the oven. Woops. I'll report back once I find one.

Wet your fingertip with a little bit of water, and trace the outside of each circle to moisten. Then fold each in half, covering the jam, and forming a little crescent shape. Seal the eadges by pressing lightly, or by scoring with a fork.

Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. We let ours go for about 9, and they came out perfectly.

Move the cookies to a wire rack and let cool. We thought that a light drizzle of a simple glaze, or maybe even a white chocolate could be a really nice touch to these little babies. Maybe next time.

All in all, I'd say these were a successful experiment. We gave a few to our friends Kristin and Meagan at the bar afterwards, and they seemed to enjoy them. No one, however, found the elusive brie. We may never know the true scope of yumminess.

Happy Baking!