food
Peach Cookies
Be a peach and try these perfectly ripe cream-filled cookies made to resemble your favorite emoji.
Ingredients
- For the pastry cream:
- 1 3/4 cups whole milk
- Rind of one lemon, cut in strips
- 4 large egg yolks
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon Luxardo liqueur
- For the cookies:
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 3 large eggs
- 3/4 cup sugar, plus more for decoration
- 2 tablespoons peach schnapps
- 3/4 cup whole milk
- 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
- Food coloring, yellow and peach colored, for decoration
- 1 1/2 cups Luxardo liqueur, for decoration
- Mint leaves, for decoration
Steps
- Prepare the pastry cream:
- In a small saucepan over low heat, add milk and lemon rind. Warm until the milk is infused with lemon flavor, then remove lemon rind.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar, then whisk in the flour. Slowly incorporate the warm milk, then pour back into the saucepan and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbling and thick. Remove from heat and whisk in Luxardo. Pour into a heatproof bowl, cover the cream with a layer of plastic wrap touching the surface to keep a skin from forming, and refrigerate until chilled.
- Make the cookies:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, sift flour and baking powder together.
- In a large bowl, whisk eggs and sugar together until combined, then add peach schnapps, milk and butter. Whisk until incorporated, then carefully mix in the flour and baking powder mixture. The dough will be thick; mix with a fork until the dough is smooth, then let rest for 10 minutes. Form into smooth balls about a tablespoon in size and place on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for about 15 minutes until just golden. Let cool slightly, then while still warm use a paring knife to cut a teaspoon-sized indentation into the flat side of each cookie. Set aside to cool completely.
- Assemble the cookies:
- Sort cooled cookies into halves that match one another, then fill each side with pastry cream and sandwich the two sides together. Run a finger along the seam of the peach to seal the two cookies together. Put aside to set.
- Place about 1 cup of sugar in a small bowl. Fill two ramekins with 3/4 cup of Luxardo each. Add yellow food coloring to one and peach food coloring to the other, then mix well. Dip one side of the filled cookie in the yellow-tinted liqueur, then dip the rest of the cookie in the peach-tinted liqueur. Roll the dipped cookie in the sugar bowl, coating all sides with sugar. Refrigerate until ready to serve. These cookies taste even better after a few hours, after the liqueur flavor infuses.