Festive cookies
- Total Time: 1 hours 30 minutes
- Yield: 40 cookies
Description
Beautiful traditional Croatian cookies!
Ingredients
Units
- 2 cups (300 g) all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (60 g) cornstarch
- 3/4 cup (90 g) powdered sugar
- 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp (210 g) butter, cold, cut in cubes
- 1/4 cup (60 g) ground hazelnuts or walnuts
- 4 egg yolks
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- marmalade plus powdered sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Whisk together flour, cornstarch, powdered sugar and ground nuts.
- Rub cold butter (cut into cubes) into the mixture. Add egg yolks and vanilla, make dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- On a floured surface, roll out dough-thin. You can also roll it out between two sheets of plastic wrap. That way you won’t need to dust the bottom and top with flour and your rolling pin won’t stick to the dough. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters (stars, flours, circles). Make sure to cut out circle in the middle of half of cookies. These parts will be your top, and the ones without the cut out middle will be the bottom. Transfer carefully on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Preheat oven to 200 C. Bake for 5-6 minutes. They should stay light colored.
- While hot, dust top parts (with cut out middle) with powdered sugar. Let cool completely.
- Brush some marmalade on the bottom of each cookie, cover with top part. Marmalade will make them stick together.
- These cookies keep well for weeks. Store in cool place.
- Prep Time: 1 hour 15 mins
- Cook Time: 5 mins
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: Croatian
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 cookies
- Calories: 130
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why does this recipe use cornstarch?
Cornstarch is the secret to why these cookies melt in your mouth within 30 minutes of baking — far faster than most similar cookies that need two days or more to soften. I use 1/2 cup (60 g) of cornstarch alongside 2 cups (300 g) of all-purpose flour.
Why should the cookies stay light-colored after baking?
Bake them at 200°C for only 5-6 minutes, and pull them out while they’re still light colored — not golden. Overbaking dries out the butter-and-nut dough and ruins the melt-in-your-mouth texture.
How long do these cookies keep?
These keep well for weeks when stored in a cool place — one of the reasons I love making them for festive occasions, holidays, and parties where you want to bake ahead.
Saving these for the holidays. My grandmother made something similar and I cannot wait to try them. They look beautiful!
I followed your recipe and was not happy with the results. The mixture was very crumbly but I continued. It was difficult to roll out, I struggled through that part too. Baking was normal however the result after baking was less than desired. The cookies are too dry and flakey. I wonder if it was the corn starch??
Does anyone know some Croatian Christmas cookies called snails (translated) the inside was from walnuts and it sort of looked like small croissants?
Hi Tamara, Maybe you can help. My mother came from Croatia and she had some special baking recipes (Christmas time). One recipe was a cutout cookie, we called them stars always cut in shape of a star, and it was a little like a cake type dough but rolled out and then she would take whip egg white, frost the cookies before baking, sprinkling on sugar and ground walnuts also before baking.
My sister and I have been searching for this recipe and can’t find it. I plan on writing a cook book for our family with all those special recipes that sometimes go with the person when they leave us.
Thank you. Love all of the European food. Merry Christmas. H PS Unfortunately when we were brought up we did not learn the language because at that time people sort frowned down on you if you spoke 2.