Kolaczki are a delicious cookie with roots in central Europe.  I’m not sure if it’s like this anywhere else, but its a big tradition for folks in Chicago to make these with their families during Christmas time so I decided to try these out on my own! They are so easy and simple – the cookie is made up of just four ingredients: flour, butter, cream cheese, and a preserve of your choice — that’s it! Read on to see how it went and some lessons I learned along the way.

Ingredients

• 1 stick of butter (1 cup)
• Cream cheese (3 oz)
• Flour (1 cup)
• Jam flavor(s) of your choice – my favorite has always been raspberry so I made my whole batch with that. You can also use apricot, plum, or strawberry.

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and grease a baking sheet with butter.

2. Combine the butter and cream cheese. Make sure that you remember to leave out your butter for a few hours so its soft enough to mix. Once the butter and cream cheese are combined – add the flour slowly. I just used my hands to mix since I didn’t want to take out my mixer. The warmth from my hands helped the dough mix together. Once everything is combined – chill overnight or at least for a few hours.

3. Rollout your dough on a floured surface. You want the dough to be about 1 cm thick – not too thin and not too thick. Remember it will rise in the oven!

4. I chose to cut my kolaczki into 2 inch squares using a wooden spatula I had on hand. Some folks  make circilar kolaczki , but I wanted to try the fancier folded type.

5. Add about a 1/2  teaspoon of jam to the middle of the square and then fold two corners together. Be careful and make sure you really pinch your cookies closed or else they’ll open up in the oven. About half of mine opened up so i’m still working on perfecting “my pinch!”

6. Put your cookies on the baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes. Depending on your oven it could take a little shorter than this so watch your cookies as they bake. Mine took a full 15 minutes to bake.

7. This recipe made me 20 cookies – once they cooled I sprinkled with powdered sugar and enjoyed!

I think I’ll start making these every year – they are so easy and simple but taste delicious. What are your Christmas cookie traditions?