Winner offers flavorful cookie

Chicago Tribune

Award-winning recipes come in all styles. This year, the winner of the Chicago Tribune cookie contest came from a reader who loves an old-fashioned, flavorful cookie that offers more than a little style as well as substance. (Note that she spells the name a little differently, because it’s tradition.)

Baba’s Cream Cheese Kolacky

This recipe, submitted by Emily Dressel of River Forest, was handed down by her grandmother, Baba. During a kolacky-baking lesson, Baba offered this advice for making these tender cookies: “You have to just sense it, Emily. The dough will tell you what it needs.”

1 bag (10 ounces) dried apricots

1‚Ñ2 cup granulated sugar

2 sticks (1 cup) butter, at room temperature

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, at room temperature

2 cups flour

Confectioners’ sugar

Place apricots in medium saucepan; cover with water. Soak overnight. Heat the apricots and water to a boil in medium saucepan over high heat; reduce heat to low. Simmer, stirring often with fork to mash and adding water if needed, until smooth and thick, about 10 minutes. (If necessary, you can chop finely with a knife or process about 1 minute in a food processor or chopper.) Add the granulated sugar, stirring until it dissolves. Cool completely.

Blend together the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl; gradually blend in flour, using hands once the dough has begun to form, until it can be shaped into a ball (this may be more or less than 2 cups). Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Divide dough into thirds. Roll out each third on a floured board into a 12-by-8-inch rectangle, 1‚Ñ8- to 1‚Ñ4-inch thick. Cut into 2-inch squares with a pizza cutter. Place 1‚Ñ2 to 3‚Ñ4 teaspoon of the apricot filling in the middle of each square. Fold each corner into middle; pinch together. (Moisten fingers with cold water if dough does not stick.)

Place cookies on ungreased cookie sheets; bake until golden, about 17 minutes per batch. Cool on wire rack; sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar.

Nutrition information per cookie: 62 calories, 52 percent of calories from fat, 4 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 10 mg cholesterol, 7 g carbohydrates, 1 g protein, 13 mg sodium, 0 g fiber

Makes: About 6 dozen