These Soft Sour Cream Cookies filled with Jam are typical throughout the Balkans and some Eastern European countries. I’ve even seen variations of these in other cuisines as well. In my native country they’re known as Kifle or Biskota me Recel.
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Filling for Cookies
These sour cream cookies are soft and not so sweet. They melt in your mouth!! Most of the sweetness comes from the filling and it creates such a balanced cookie! The cookies shown in this recipe are filled with my Blueberry Apple Jam. Typical fillings in the Balkan area are:
- Jam – blueberry, quince, plum, apple
- Nuts – walnuts, hazelnuts or almonds
- Chocolate – Nutella or any chocolate filling
Traditionally, in my native country of Albania we serve cookies with Turkish coffee and water to guests visiting our house. If we don’t have baked goods, then we serve spoon sweets with coffee and water.
Since I’ve lived most of my adult life in the States, I have adopted new customs and traditions and weaved in my own. So every December we bake these cookies and fill them with whatever jam I have at home. It’s baking season and my kids love these cookies!
Tips and Notes
These cookies are surprisingly easy to make. Make the dough, flatten, cut into shapes, add jam, roll and bake. Some of the below tips are best practices I use to make the cookies and some are answers to my readers questions that I thought might be helpful to everyone:).
I prefer these cookies dusted with confectioner sugar, but you can eat them as they are or roll them in granulated sugar while they’re still warm, out of the oven.
Tip: refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes before you start working it, otherwise dough is not easy to roll.
After cooling the dough, separate in 3 different balls. Flatten each with a rolling pin to form an even circle, about quarter inch thick. It helps to use a surface with dusted flour in it so dough doesn’t stick. I used a thinner rolling stick from my native country called ‘okllai‘ but you can use a traditional rolling pin.
As soon as you flatten the dough, cut in 8 pieces like you would with a pizza. On the corner of each slice, add jam or your favorite filling with a spoon. Usually I try half a teaspoon. You don’t want to add too much because it will spill over on the sides while baking. Also, jam shouldn’t be too runny.
Roll each slice starting from the wider end, over the jam and then continue rolling. Place cookies onto parchment paper on a baking sheet. Try to work fast so cookies don’t lose their shape.
You can tilt the ends of the cookie to form a real crescent shape.
Bake for a short time at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about 176 degrees Celsius, round up to 180). Usually it takes about 10-11 minutes to bake. Let the cookies cool on a cooling rack after baking. This helps the jam set and not spill from the sides.
Soft Sour Cream Cookies Filled With Jam
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 eggs
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 12 tsp jam I used blueberry apple jam from my recipes but feel free to use jam of your choice!
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 butter stick room temperature
- ⅓ cup warm milk
- 0.5 packet Active Yeast
- ⅓ cup sour cream
- 3 tbsps confectioner sugar for garnish
Instructions
- Activate the yeast by pouring half of an active yeast packet into warm milk. Add the sugar as well and mix well. Set aside.
- Prepare the dough – beat egg yolks with a hand held mixer. Slowly add sour cream and vanilla and continue mixing. Add the milk/yeast mixture and continue mixing. Slowly add flour and incorporate. At this point use a spoon or your hands to mix since the hand held mixer won't be able to mix the dough. Finally add butter at room temperature.
- Refrigerate dough for at least half an hour, longer if you can.
- Get dough from refrigerator, knead it few times. Separate in 3 balls of dough and put them aside. Flatten each ball with a rolling pin into a circular shape. Cut in 8 slices. Place half a teaspoon of jam on each then roll onto crescent shapes. Place each cookie on parchment paper on a baking sheet.
- Make sure oven is pre-heated at 350 degrees F. Bake cookies for about 10-12 minutes depending on the oven. Usually I know cookies are done once they get a golden color.
- Cool the cookies on a cooling rack. Garnish with confectioner's sugar if you prefer.
Notes
- Serving is estimated at 1 cookie per person, but believe me you won’t be able to stop at just one! I just wanted to mention this in case you are calorie conscious! I personally stop counting calories during the holidays:)
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please pin the below image to your Pinterest boards. Feel free to ask questions in comments below or contact me in social media as well:). Thank you!
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More Recipes:)
Feel free to check out these other recipes, some are cookies and some seasonal desserts!
- Vanilla, Orange Cookies
- Mediterranean Almond Cookies
- Chocolate Chips Panettone
- Greek Almond Cookies this recipe is from my friend Lorraine in her blog Tamarind & Thyme
- Albanian Hashure
Ellen
Thank you for the quick response … my grandson (10 yrs. old) wants to know if we’re having “Sonila food” for dinner tonight .. every recipe I’ve tried is so good and such a hit with my family!
E.
Sonila
Hi Ellen, hope you are doing great and New Year is finding you well!! AS promised here is my kulac recipe,https://mediterraneanlatinloveaffair.com/albanian-soda-bread-kulac/ Feel free to ask questions in comments or email me if you have any questions. There are versions with eggs, mine doesn’t have eggs. At home we only made it with yogurt. However, if you would like to add eggs, keep all ingredients the same, add 1 egg then use less water to form the dough. All the best:)
Ellen
OMG!!!!! These are so-o -o delicious – my family loved them and have put in a request for a TRIPLE batch next time around. OK – it’s official request time …. in January (when you do updates) could you please include Albanian recipes for Petula me Veze and Halva? I need to add these to my Albanian recipes book and also the Kulac recipe …….. thanks, Sonila!
“Irish” Ellen
Sonila
You’re awesome!! I love the feedback!! I doubted posting the recipe because my pictures didn’t come out as nice, so I wasn’t sure it was good enough!! I was making these cookies with my son so he was helping me roll them and I was taking some pictures in between.
Petulla was already in my list. Added Kulac from your last message and will do halva too. Happy Holidays to you and your family Ellen!