Granny’s Filled Cookies

I love the ease of this recipe which is the equivalent to my mom’s recipe for cream cheese kiffles. Whenever someone makes kiffles I ask them… did you use the cream cheese recipe or the sour cream one. At any rate , for the kiffles you follow the recipe here and then put in your very thick preserves/kiffle filling and then roll them into a crescent shape, bake until golden. I love them!

I followed the recipe exactly but didn’t have a good result. I make “fried pies” that are basically pie dough rolled out and cut into circles, fill with PRESERVES, crimp close and deep fried until golden. Once cooled, sprinkle on powdered sugar. They look like these but easier to make, especially if you use store bought pie crusts. PRESERVES are thicker than jam so I think that makes a difference.

This is really a cream cheese pastry recipe with a sweet filling. Technically, it’s not a cookie because the dough has no sugar in it. You can add a small amount of sugar (1/4-1/3 cup) without changing the dough too much. Adding 1/8-1/4 tsp salt will also enhance dough flavor.

Very good. Big hit here.

Thank you sooo much for posting this recipe! It was almost lost to our family when my aunt passed away. We knew the ingredients, but not the proportions. This is an old southern recipe. In my family it’s essential these be made with high quality apricot preserves. My Granny (b. 1883) & Grandma had apricot trees. They canned their own apricot preserves every year & made these cookies at the holidays. They are infamous in my family. My Dad and Uncle used to fight over them! My Dad’s health is not good and thanks to you posting this, I was able to make these for him for Father’s day. It was a real blessing. They aren’t just cookies, they are memories. I think many reviewers don’t understand these cookies. They are not supposed to be sweet. If you are using a high quality, low sugar preserve, they will be even less sweet and the dusting of powered sugar is a must. I saw one review say they would just use store bought pie crust dough. I could understand the temptation to skip all the work, but that would be a shame. There’s no way a store bought dough could come close to the intended light, delicate, flaky result in these cookies. They should not be dry either. Make sure you are using a high quality butter and follow the directions exactly. Don’t try to skip chilling the dough overnight. Make sure you roll them thin enough and don’t over-bake. These are special cookies and due to the work involved to make them right, I only make them for special occasions.

These were interesting. I really felt they needed some sugar in the pastry. It was not really a pie crust nor was it a sweet crust. Easy enough to mix up and roll out.

These cookies eventually turned out great! Once I figured out that I needed to roll out the dough pretty thin and make the balls barely one inch, they were really good. And be sure to sprinkle the powered sugar on the cookies once they are done. It adds that little sweetness to that plain dough.

They were good tasting but the next time I will use a store bought pie crust because the one in the recipe did not work so good, it kept falling apart.

These cookies were no good!! They have no taste except for the homemade jelly on them. Must be something missing in the ingredient list.

Loved these cookies! I originally made them exactly as the recipe directed. THe second time I refrigerated the entire cookie contents and rolled them all out the next morning. These cookies are already a favorite!

Simple but delicious. Thank you, I made these cookies for Thanksgiving and they were devoured. This will be one of my go to cookie recipes. Thank you for sharing

I use sm cookie scoop and bottom of glass to flatten.

The cookie was dry and impossible to properly fill. No good.

Love it! After reading the reviews, I rolled out the dough used a cookie cutter and crimped it shut so the preserve does not seep out. It worked beautifully. These cookies are delicious.

I wish there was a way to get more filling into these cookies. It’s such a small amount of jam, that when the cookies puff during baking, there isn’t much filling in comparison. I refrigerated the dough overnight, but needed to let it warm up for quite a while before I could work with it. Like others, I rolled the dough out and cut it with a 3″ round cutter. I made some cookies with apricot jam and some with homemade cherry-raspberry jam. I used a little water to help the dough stick to itself and pressed it with the tines of a fork to help seal in the jam. Some still leaked out, but it did help. This is a very tender, flaky cookie. They are best eaten the first day or two. I haven’t had the opportunity to try freezing them. I would like to try using a chunkier fruit filling in the future. Tip: If rolling out the dough for cutting, roll between two sheets of waxed paper lightly dusted with flour. This makes the job much simpler!

We make these cookies every year, at least 10 batches of them. You have to chill the dough, or you will not be able to work with it. Then we make them in the thumbprint style. This is a great recipe for the kids to help with. Fill thumprint with home made preserves, we use raspberry and strawberry. Also, we just bake them until the bottoms are just turning golden, and cool on a wire rack. Very easy made this way, and LOTS of compliments.

Trust me, if you refrigerate the dough overnight the dough is much easier to work with. My hungarian grandmother made these cookies! Very good!

I make a cookie almost exactly like this. The dough is much, much easier to work with if you chill it for an hour or more in the fridge after mixing. Roll it out with a rolling pin on a floured surface, and use a cookie cutter to get the flat rounds.

These were a pain in the butt to make. The dough was sort of difficult to work with and the filling all bubbled out. but, they did taste alright.

I was wary of being the first to try this recipe, but I figured I’d take the chance.
My problem was that I wasn’t sure what these were supposed to look like in the end. I ended up rolling these out as flat as I could and then using an upside-down cup to cut circles so they would all look consistent. Then, after filling with strawberry preserves, I crimped them shut with a fork. The dough seemed a bit crumbly at first but got easier to work with once I started rolling them out a bit. While cooking, some of the jelly seeps out and hardens on the cookie sheet (but can be easily cleaned off with very hot water). In the end, they ended up tasting like mini strawberry pies. They have a nice appearance for giving as gifts.