When I was little I loved leafing through my mom’s recipe book. I recognized some recipes and some were foreign since I did not remember eating them. Back in Russia (or shall I say Soviet Union) it was quite normal to leave child home alone. It did not happen too often for me, but I remember staying home by myself as early as five or six years old. I loved it. It made me feel like an adult.
One of those times, I was looking through that recipe book and I saw a recipe that seemed very easy. It had Farmers Cheese, butter and flour and after checking the fridge, pantry and finding all the ingredients, I decided to surprise my mom by making the cookies.
I asked my mom recently if she remembers this, but she could not recall. I, however, distinctly remember how it was my first time turning on the oven. And what an oven it was!! I had to use matches and turn on gas just the right amount. It was quite difficult and scary, but I succeeded.
Cookies weren’t the dessert that we had often in my family. My mom and grandma usually made bundt cakes, quick sweet breads and layered cakes. Cookies were rare, so I loved these little morsels whenever they made appearance on the table.
They are not like traditional cookies and have totally different texture. In fact, the dough can be used for strudels and pies, both sweet and savoury. Farmers Cheese gives the dough a slightly acidic/sour flavour as well as softer and a little bit caky texture. It also makes the cookies healthier as it replaces butter.
There are many different variations of this recipe. Some have equal amount of cheese and butter. Some have eggs, some don’t. Some use melted or room temperature butter. I even made this recipe once with cream cheese instead of farmers cheese.
Farmers Cheese Cookies
Makes approximately 2.5 dozens depending on the size
Farmers Cheese Cookies
Makes approximately 2.5 dozens depending on the size
Butter, cold – 60 g (1/4 cup, 1/2 stick)
Farmers cheese – 200 g (1 cup, packed)
Egg – 1 large
Flour – 150 g (approximately 1 1/4 cup) + more for rolling the dough
Baking powder – 1 teaspoon
Sugar – 50 g (approximately 1/4 cup)
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a large bowl combine cold butter and farmers cheese.
- Using pastry blender, mix butter and farmers cheese together. You can use food processor as well, but I find it easier using just a big bowl and pastry blender, less cleanup after.
- Add an egg and mix well until batter becomes smooth.
- Add flour, baking powder and mix.
- Once flour gets incorporated, turn the dough (it will not be smooth yet) onto a floured surface and knead a few times to get all the crumbs together and make it into a smooth ball.
- NOTE: it is not an error, there’s no sugar in the dough.
- Roll the dough on a well floured surface with well floured rolling pin to 1/8 thickness.
- Using a round cookie cutter or just a glass, cut out circles.
- Pour sugar into small bowl.
- Dip one side of dough circles into sugar, fold to keep sugar inside. Dip one side of folded half circles into sugar, fold again into quarter sugared side inside. Finally dip one side of the resulting “triangles” into sugar and place on the baking sheet sugared side up.
- Repeat with all the circles.
- Re-roll the scraps and repeat.
- Bake for 30-45 minutes or until cookies start to turn golden and are springy to the touch.
- Cool and enjoy.
Comments
– You may want to add 1/8 more flour if the dough is too sticky. I did not add flour, but I used a lot while rolling the dough.
– You can mix sugar with cinnamon and dip cookies in that. It’s really yummy especially in the fall when it’s almost a sin not to use cinnamon while baking.
– My oven took almost 45 minutes to bake these cookies, but my oven is very strange and takes longer for almost everything, so please adjust baking time accordingly.
– As I mentioned earlier in the post, this dough can be used for strudels, tarts and pies. Since it has no sugar, it will work for sweet and savoury dishes.
– As you can see on the picture below, the texture is pretty flaky, but it’s not like a traditional pie dough. Farmers Cheese makes the dough softer.
– And one final fun fact note, in Russia one of the names for these cookies is “Goose Feet” as the shape of the cookies somewhat resembles webbed feet of a Goose,
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