Peaches
This is a special occasion cookie and they look like real peaches. I hope this becomes a family favorite for you.
Dough
4 eggs 1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar 1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup oil 4 cups flour
Mix eggs, sugar, oil and milk. Then add the flour and baking powder. Roll into small balls the size of walnuts. Bake at 350 degrees until lightly brown. Let cool. At this time they can be frozen for filling at a later time. Hollow each cookie from the bottom with a melon-baller. Fill with the Filling mixture listed below.
Filling
3/4 cup sugar 4 beaten egg yolks
3 TBSP cornstarch 1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt Alkermes liqueur (recipe follows)
2 cups milk sugar or dry red jell-o
Mix the sugar, cornstarch and salt. Add the milk while stirring. Heat on med until bubbly and thick. Cook for two more minutes. Remove from heat. Add 1 TBSP of hot liquid to the beaten egg yolks to temper. Add yolks to hot liquid while whisking. Cook an additional two minutes. Remove from heat and add 1 tsp vanilla. Chill. Take two cookies that are the same size and fill with the filling and put together like a peach. Let sit until all pairs are filled. Put Alkermes in coffee cup or small bowl. Roll the filled peaches in the Alkermes, then in either the sugar or red jell-o. When done rolling all the cookies wrap in plastic wrap and either freeze or refrigerate.
Alkermes: A Tuscan liqueur that was originally produced in Florence in the time of the Medici Family. The liqueur is spicy sweet and has a color somewhat like grenadine syrup. Alkermes is used in a variety of Tuscan desserts, especially Zuccotto, the cake that reminds one of the color and shape of Brunelleschi's dome on the cathedral in Florence.
This recipe, by Giuliano Bugialli, makes about 7 cups of Alkermes
3 1/2 cup cold water
795 g sugar
3 cups vodka
1/2 cup rose water
5 1/4 tsp cinnamon
5 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1 1/2 cochineal dye
1/4 tsp orange peel dried
1 tsp anise seed
1 1/2 tsp mace
1 tsp cloves whole
1/2 TBS cardamom pods
1/2 vanilla bean
To prepare the Alkermes, place all the spices except the vanilla bean in a marble mortar and grind them with the pestle. Cut the vanilla bean into five pieces. Place the ground spices and vanilla pieces in a glass jar with screw top. Add the grain alcohol or the vodka and 1 ½ cups cold water, then close the jar and let it stand for one week, shaking the jar once a day.
When ready, dissolve the sugar in the remaining 2 cups of cold water. Add the water with the dissolved sugar to the jar, cover and let rest for one more day, shaking twice during this period. Strain the contents of the jar through a coffee filter into large crockery or glass bowl. Add the rose water to the bowl then transfer the contents to two bottles. Close the bottles and let rest for one more day.
Cochineal is a natural red dye available at stores that sell fabric dyes. One on-line source is Dharma Trading Company. Cochineal is used in this recipe more for its color rather than its flavor, so you can substitute a good quality red cake-decorating paste dye mixed in one and a half teaspoons of corn syrup.
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