Cooking & Baking with Bourbon

Re-inventing Family Recipes

Every Christmas I make several of my family’s favorite cookie recipes. What’s fun is re-inventing or tweaking the recipes with of course a little bourbon!

Filled Cookies is a 4-generation old recipe from my Great Grandma Price from LaGrange, Indiana. This is an Amish inspired cookie with lots of flour in the dough and use what you have for the filling. Warm and inviting, it has been a family favorite for years.

Filling:

The original filling you cook on the stove top until it thickens and then let it cool.

1 cup raisins

1 cup chopped dates

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup water

2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon butter

The dough does not need to be chilled, however you can chill the filling and dough if you need to wait to bake within a couple of days.

Dough:

Cream together until smooth:

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup shorting (I use half butter, half shorting.)

3 eggs

2 tablespoons sour milk (you can mix separate; 2 tablespoons regular milk with a cap size of vinegar then add to mixture.)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift and add to wet ingredients:

4 cups of flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

 

This is a very soft dough that can be rolled out and baked right away. Roll dough out on a floured surface. Depending how big you like your cookies, I use a glass to cut circles in the dough no bigger than a rock glass size!

Transfer the cut cookie to a baking sheet that is either greased, or I use parchment paper (less clean up!) Now place filling in center of the cookie and fold cookie over to one side. Use a fork on the edge to seal the cookie. These will rise and almost double in size so make sure you don’t crowd to many on the baking sheet.

Preheat oven at 375 degrees and bake for 8 minutes.

 

Where’s the bourbon?

I hear you! I’ve tried adding bourbon to the filling, but it didn’t change the flavor – the bourbon just cooked out. So, I thought why not add it to the top of the cookie?

Make a Maple Bourbon Confection Sugar Frosting and drizzle over the top of the baked cookie! The maple bourbon flavor enhances the raisin date filling and is warm and delightful!

Maple Bourbon Topping

1 ½ cup Confection sugar

1-2 tablespoon Milk

½ teaspoon Vanilla

1-2 tablespoons Maple Bourbon Syrup

Cream together until it’s thick yet easy to spoon and drizzle over the cooled cookies.

I’ve tried a variety of maple bourbon syrups and found in my area Iron Fish Distillery makes an exceptional one! You can order it online through their site.

 

Try a new filling: Bourbon Peach Filled Cookies

This year I added a different filling. Instead of using the raisin date filling I used a Bourbon Peach Jam (peaches, brown sugar, sugar, fruit pectin, bourbon, lemon juice, vanilla), that I found at a local festival.

It held the bourbon peach goodness all the way through the cookie! I simply used about ½ teaspoon of the jam right onto the cookie dough and baked for 8 minutes. I drizzled a simple confection sugar frosting over it and bam! It was a sweet warm cookie filled with peach and you can taste the bourbon on the end!

Unfortunately the person who created the jam didn’t put their name on the jar =(  So next year I will have to search her out or make my own!

Keep your eyes open for those bourbon enhanced products and re-invent your family recipe! You never know when you may create your family’s next favorite holiday recipe!

Cheers!