This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is for X Cookies,
which is a traditional Italian cookie. I’m pretty sure that it’s a Christmas cookies,
as X is the Greek letter Chi, meaning Christ. Ok, so I am making these in the
fall but that’s ok. Figs are in season right now, even though this uses dried
figs, so that seems seasonable. You can do a quick search on the web and find
the recipe for these cookies. Also, make sure that you check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site
to see the posts from all the other bakers. I think
there will be quite a few filling variations for these cookies.
When I looked at this recipe, I thought that they would be a
lot of work. Sometimes I get annoyed when cookies take a bit more effort, but I
was really excited to make these. I started making them and I was very
surprised at how easily they came together. A recipe I looked at online had you
chill the dough and filling, but the original recipe said you could proceed
right away. I didn’t chill mine and it worked flawlessly. I was really pleased
with how well these turned out.
I halved the recipe, which was plenty of cookies (32).
Normally I have no luck rolling out dough to a certain size, but this dough was
super easy to work with. I made the filling as the recipe specified, but used
hazelnuts rather than almonds as I seem to be out of those. I had candied
orange peel on hand; I use that in British recipes fairly regularly so I try to
keep some in the cupboard as it can be tricky to find. I assembled all of these
and then baked them up. The first few cookies took a little longer but then I
had it down to a science. These kind of taste like a Fig Newton with a crisper
outer cookie, and I really enjoyed making them!
Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan
