Friday, October 22, 2010

Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies—Ischeler Tortelettes

Week 4 of the Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies.  It’s going to be here before you know it.  Do YOU know what goodies will be on your Christmas baking list?  Check out all the ideas at the links on the bottom of this post!

(You can also see my latest post for FFWD below this one.)

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Last week while at the check out at a grocery store, I noticed some of the new holiday issues of some of my favorite magazines.  One that caught my eye was the Woman’s Day Special, Best Ideas for Christmas.  It caught my eye because there are nine great looking cookies on the front cover that were selected cookies for the magazine through the last nine decades.  I’ve had fun looking through the magazine and reading about cookies past.

For this week’s cookie, I actually chose to make one of the nine cookies featured in Woman’s Day, December 1961 issue.  I feel a little bad that for the second week in the row, I have chosen to make a cookie with such a difficult name.  Last week I made Pfeffernussen Cookies and now I am sharing with you Ischeler Tortelettes.  Never heard of them?  Me, either.  But I liked the look of the cookies and the fact that they were a delicate, crispy almond shortbread, sandwiched with apricot preserves and glaze with chocolate on top.  They sounded good to me!  And they look nice.  I do think they would make a nice addition to your Christmas cookie tray or even a cookie swap.

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The cookies are simple to make.  First the dough is made and then left to sit in the refrigerator overnight.  Then the dough is rolled out and cut into 1 1/2 inch circles.  The recipe says to bake the cookies for eight minutes, but mine took 15!  Were ovens different back in the 60’s? ;)

After all the little round cookies have baked and cooled, a small amount of apricot preserves  it set on top of half the cookies and a top cookie is placed on the preserves.  Then each top cookie is glazed with chocolate and set with a few sliced almonds.  I do have one thing I thought was a little funny, I guess.  This recipe from 1961 says to melt the chocolate in the microwave.  Did they HAVE microwaves back then?  I know, the recipe was probably updated to make it more simple for today’s woman. ;)

 

In doing a small amount of searching on the internet, Ischler Cookies are a Dutch cookie and there are a number of recipes for them which are all similar, but I didn’t see any that were exactly the same.  These have ground almonds in them, but I didn’t see any of the other recipes I looked at with ground almonds.  I have a bag of almond meal, so I also wanted to use some of it up.  I also thought these cookies would be great with raspberry jam as I love raspberry and chocolate together, but I didn’t have any to try it.

Here's a link to the recipe from the Woman’s Day website which I followed exactly, except that my cookies took about 15 minutes to bake and the recipe suggests just eight minutes.  Start checking them after eight minutes and bake them until they are starting to turn golden.

Week four, let’s see, that means that Christmas is just over eight weeks away.  Better get your bake on. ;)



23 comments:

Lisa said...

I love looking at holiday magazines. That's the only time we ever buy them (but we do buy them all at that time). These cookies look so delicate and pretty with all their components - jam, chocolate, almonds, etc. I guess women back in the 60s had a lot of time to make their cookies look extra special.

Dajana said...

They look adorable. I also have a recipe for Ischeler cookies, that is different from yours, haven't made it in ages. I think in my recipe the cookies are sandwiched with chocolate wallnut buttercream. I love yours because they look simpler and very tasty.

April said...

I have never heard of these cookies either, but they do look a little fancy, and delish!

Katie Rose said...

I have never heard of these but with the flavors being almond, apricot, and chocolate they sound like a shortbread version of seven layer cookies/rainbow cookies. That means I'm sure to love them!

Unknown said...

These cookies look really good! I agree raspberry jam would be beautiful! I have to say I'm always doubtful when a recipes says that the cookies bake in under 10 minutes. 8 minutes is not very long. I know my oven wouldn't cook in such a short amount of time. But then again I love the taste of well baked cookies. Yours look perfect!

Lisa Ernst said...

These look beautiful, and I too have never heard of them before. I love the concept, although I'm not a big fan of jam or jelly filling. Something else -- perhaps chocolate almond butter cream, or Nutella maybe?

Megan said...

OMG, what a pretty cookie. I think your showing us up Katrina!!! :)
I bet your right, this looks like it would be great with raspberry jam, or how about an orange marmalade??? Oh gosh, YUM! This would be an excellent choice for a cookie platter. Very impressive!

Jacque said...

Hard to believe Christmas isn't really very far away.

Your cookies sound delightful. Just the type you would go to the extra effort to make during the holidays. Nice job!

The Double Dipped Life said...

You are very brave! The cookies look fabulous.

Erin said...

These are beautiful! Great job!

Unknown said...

These are just gorgeous! I've never heard of them before either but they sound wonderful!

Tracy said...

I have never heard of these before, but they look fancy and sound amazing!

Sue said...

What great flavors! The chocolate looks so creamy:) YUM! I love all the ideas in all the Christmas edition magazines.

Pam said...

these look wonderful! I love easy cookies that look like they took hours to make! : )

Chats the Comfy Cook said...

I wasn't planning on clicking on the first recipe since I thought, a lot of people would do that but then I saw those cookies and I had to find out more.

Really great job.

Unknown said...

These are pretty, I love the *fans* on top, fancy

Hindy said...

Lovely job both discovering and baking these cookies!

Lee Ann said...

These look great! I don't have that Holiday Magazine yet... and I stress YET... lol I'm in love with Holiday Magazines!!

Kerstin said...

They're so adorable and I love your idea to do 12 weeks of cookies :)

Donna-FFW said...

I knew there was another me out there who has to buy holiday cookie magazines!!!

Your cookie choice is superb.. they look fantastic in that close up photo.

Anonymous said...

These look so awesome! They have the "fancy factor" of a holiday cookie, plus they sound really delicious.

Anonymous said...

i have never encountered these cookies before,but they look delish!

Steph said...

The almonds make the cookies look so elegant! I love it!

You've got a new follower :) I started a baking meme last week and would love for you to link up! :)

http://bit.ly/dsiHvw