Christmas Stollen Cookies

Christmas Stollen Cookies
Milwaukee Published 6:00 a.m. CT Dec. 5, 2017
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“My mother always baked stollen, so I thought maybe I could come up with a cookie version,” wrote Sharon Schmidbauer of Menomonee Falls of her original Triple Play recipe.

The base is a basic rugelach dough, to which she added more flour, an egg, cardamom and baking soda. The almond filling mimics the marzipan filling in stolen sent to her as gifts from Germany. They’re really mini-stollens, both delicious and cute.

Christmas Stollen Cookies
Recipe tested by Carol Deptolla

Makes about 4 dozen

Dough:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
⅔ cup powdered sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ¾ cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
⅔ cup candied fruitcake mix
⅓ cup golden raisins
⅓ cup brown raisins
¼ cup chopped toasted almonds

Filling:

8 ounces boxed almond paste (not canned; see note)

Glaze:       

2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons milk or water
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
Red candied cherries for decoration

Make dough: In mixer bowl, at medium speed, mix together butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, egg and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Separately, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda and cardamom, then slowly mix into butter mixture (do not overmix). Next gently stir in by hand the fruitcake mix, both raisins and the toasted almonds. Divide dough in half, form into two discs, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 2 hours or overnight.

Meanwhile, prepare filling: Divide rectangular block of almond paste in half, then cut 1/8-inch-thick rectangular slices, about 1 ½ inches long. Cover with plastic wrap to keep from drying out.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness on lightly floured surface and cut out with a 2 ½-inch round cookie cutter. Gather scraps of dough, reroll and cut out more rounds.

Place a slice of almond paste slightly off center on the dough. Brush edge of dough with water and then fold dough to cover almond paste. Press down and seal the edge. Bake in preheated oven on parchment-lined cookie sheets 12 to 14 minutes, until golden brown.

While cookies bake, make glaze: Stir together all ingredients in order given (adjust consistency as needed).

Brush over tops of cookies while still on the sheet pan and warm from the oven. Decorate with a candied cherry half.

Place on cooling rack.

Note: If buying the 7-ounce tube-shaped almond paste, divide in half lengthwise and cut each half into half-moons about 1/8 inch thick.