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Bohemian Christmas Cookies
2 egg yolks, hard cooked 1/3 cup shortening 1/3 cup sugar 1 egg yolk, well beaten 1 tablespoon milk flour 3 tablespoons almonds, blanched and chopped fine 1 egg white, beaten stiff Put hard cooked yolks of eggs through a ricer or sieve and cream with shortening and sugar. Add raw egg yolk, milk and sifted flour, sufficient to roll out. Cut with small cutter. Brush with beaten egg white and sprinkle with almonds. Bake in a slow oven, until brown. This makes 30 2-in. cookies.
A short, sandy cookie built on an unusual old trick: sieved hard-cooked egg yolk in the dough. The flour is left to the cook's judgement, which is the only real puzzle here.
- Flour quantityThe original gives no amount, only "sufficient to roll out." With this much fat and sugar, expect roughly 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour; add it in stages and stop when the dough just holds together and is no longer sticky.
- Slow ovenA slow oven is generally taken as 300-325F. The recipe says only to bake until brown; at that heat, thin cookies will likely need somewhere around 15-20 minutes, so watch them rather than trust a timer.
- Why cooked yolkCooked yolk brings fat and already-coagulated protein to the dough with little water available to develop the flour's gluten, which is what gives these cookies their crumbly, shortbread-like break. Sieve it properly or you will get yellow lumps.
- ShorteningIn books of this period "shortening" is a generic term: butter, lard or a solid vegetable fat, whichever the cook had. Butter works well here; keep the same volume, 1/3 cup, at cool room temperature.
- RollingRoll thin, about 1/8 inch, and chill the sheet of dough briefly if it softens. A dough this short tears rather than stretches, so patch it with your fingers instead of rerolling repeatedly.
- Glaze and nutsBeat the white only until frothy-stiff, not dry, or it will not brush on evenly. Press the chopped almonds down lightly so they stay put after baking.
- YieldThirty 2-inch cookies, as stated. They keep well for a week or more in a tin.