Mincemeat Surprise Sandies

Merry Christmas everyone! Although this is a strange year, I hope that you can connect with those you love. My husband and I are home be ourselves today, but we feel that is safest for everyone. Our house is decorated, and we’ve found a number of different streaming opportunities online, so we’re trying to enjoy this holiday as much as possible. I sure do miss the family though.

When I was a kid, each Christmas we got a tin of cookies from Grandma, and that was the main thing that I looked forward too. She always made Surprise Cookies, which are a vanilla dough stuffed with a chocolate wafer. At some point, the department store where she got the chocolate wafers stopped carrying them, and I’ve never found quite the same thing. I did make my own version, but they weren’t as good as Grandma’s.

These mincemeat cookies have many of the same ideas, although they are stuffed with mincemeat rather than chocolate wafers. This version has chopped pecans in the cookie dough, but you could leave that out if you didn’t like nuts. The nuts make the cookies taste a bit like Russian Teacakes, another favorite, with that nutty, melt-in-the-mouth flavor. It is a bit fussy to shape the dough around the mincemeat, but the cookies are worth the extra effort!

Mincemeat Surprise Sandies
1 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 1/4 cups mincemeat
Powdered sugar

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium until combined. Add the water and vanilla and stir to combine. Add the flour and pecans and stir on low until the dough comes together. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Shape each tablespoon of dough into a circle and top each circle with 1 teaspoon of mincemeat. Carefully shape the cookie dough around the mincemeat. Place the cookies, seam side down, on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Before serving, roll or sprinkle the cookies in powdered sugar.

Recipe from None Such Recipes