These Chinese pastries resemble the baked goods you may buy at the supermarket. The heart of them is chocolate. Fudge icing is available prepared at the supermarket or you may create it yourself.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 35 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 2 dozen |
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 1 ½ cups shortening
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 ½ cups cake flour
- 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup ground walnuts
- 1 cup prepared chocolate fudge frosting
Instructions
- Cream together sugar and shortening in a medium bowl. Stir in egg and vanilla, beat until light and fluffy.
- Combine cake flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Dough will be stiff, you may need to use your hands to mix. Roll dough into a log about 15 inches long, and roll in the ground nuts. Wrap and chill dough for at least an hour or until firm.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
- Unwrap dough and cut into 1/2-inch slices. Place cookies 1 1/2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes. Allow cookies to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheets before removing to cool completely on wire racks.
- When cool, place a dollop of fudge icing onto the center of each cookie.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 602 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 73 g |
| Cholesterol | 16 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 8 g |
| Sodium | 336 mg |
| Sugars | 38 g |
| Fat | 33 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This is by far one of my favorite cookies to get at our local bakeries. I will say that this is about as close as you can get to those cookies baking them at home. I did substitute almond extract for the vanilla, but other than that I followed the recipe. They are absolutely delicious and I got rave reviews from my coworkers.
I made this recipe, as I was searching for something that would remind me of visiting the bakeries in NYC when I was a kid. The recipe is excellent and easy to put together. Like others, I made the marble version, so after the dough was complete, I removed half. For the remaining half, I added 1/3 cup of unsweetened cocoa and 2 tablespoons of half & half, and mixed. I then formed each of the dough halves into a 15 inch log, and then laid them on top of each other. I twisted the combined log in three places, and then folded the log in half onto itself. I then rolled it out again to get to 15 inches, wrapped it in wax paper and chilled in fridge for 30 minutes. Did not roll in nuts. Cut the dough into 1/2 inch slices and placed on cookie sheet that was covered in parchment paper. Only baked for 10 minutes and it was perfect. After the cookies cooled, I melted a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and a spoon of coconut oil, and let that cool a bit. I then put a baby spoon of chocolate onto the center of each cookie. The cookies went over huge and wife even thought they were the best thing I’ve made in a while. Only two minor challenges… 1. When I cut the dough, it created a rippled texture along the top of each cookie even though I used a sharp knife. So wondering if I should be using a special knife to slice. 2. The chocolate in the center of each cookie never firmed up…even a day later, so not sure what would’ve been a better approach. I was trying to get the sam
Cannot believe I made these myself… amazingly delicious. Can’t find these nearby and the last few Jewish bakeries I’ve visited when traveling have had terrible versions. I have always lamented the chocolate on these (I dislike chocolate) so now I can leave it off. Also omitted vanilla as I’m not a fan. I followed directions but ended up baking these for ~25 minutes.
I am really enjoying these cookies. I substituted half a cup of shortening with butter, because I was nervous about using only shortening, but I shouldn’t have worried. Next time I will use only shortening. My dough was really sticky and not dry at all, like other reviewers said – maybe I didn’t measure the flour right? Either way, they are delicious.
Possibly because I used melted Earth Balance as my shortening, but I found the dough super greasy and an hour in the fridge only made it slightly firmer. [EDIT: It was the melted not-butter. Using softened butter, it is less greasy, way firmer.] I also didn’t roll the dough in nuts (allergies), so the raw dough log slices looked horrifyingly like gefilte fish. That said, everyone seems to have loved them. My uncle: “Are you trying to fatten us up for the winter?” My mum: “How did you make them taste exactly like the bakery’s cookies?!” Four stars only because I don’t like Chinese cookies myself – they’re too doughy and not sweet enough for me – which is not a complaint about this recipe, but this type of cookie. For frosting I followed the recipe here (http://kosherfood.about.com/od/desserts/r/icing_choc_p.htm) except with coffee instead of water. Unlike a different pareve frosting I tried, this one almost solidified in about two hours at room temperature. If you’ve ever had a Stella D’oro Swiss Fudge, this had a very similar texture to that.
Love them! Where I live my grocery makes them using almond extract and they are to die for…made the substitution and they were gone in one day!
Didn’t follow recipe and added butter-sugar-egg to flour and ended up with a very crumbly dough. My mistake. Wrapping dough in parchment paper and squeezing the dough really, really hard, I was able to form it into a log. Look askance at it, and it’ll crumble. The dough crumbled when trying to cut it with either a small knife or dental floss. Reforming the crumbled dough by hand is possible, ending up with misshapen, irregular cookies. I made the cookies thicker, to match what is found in bakeries. Maybe I’ll try it again following instructions!
Made these cookies 6 times, they are simply wonderful. We had a bakery that use to sell these and it went out of business when the owners retired, although supermarkets have tried to make and sell these they are not anything like the bakery shop version which is identical to this recipe. I never changed a thing used prepared chocolate icing . Also I wrap the roll in waxed freezer paper while I refrigerate it make it easy to roll and u roll. These are The Best.
Tastes just like the ones my mom used to buy from the store. Just what i was looking for.
These were delicious. They received high marks from the whole family! I used butter instead of shortening and white wheat flour instead of cake flour. Impatient as I am, I just stuck the wrapped dough in the freezer for about 15 minutes and they were fine. I wasn’t able to roll the dough into logs, though. It turned out more squarish so I had to reshape the dough after chilling. Also 1 roll was way too big, I rolled my dough into 2 “logs” and wrapped them separately. Overall, these cookies were a big success. I used the Quick Fudge Icing (from All-Recipes) and also sprinkled a little powdered sugar on the cookies prior to baking.No walnuts for me, but they were great without! The cookies kept well and the entire family enjoyed these immensely! Great recipe, I would definitely recommend trying it.
Love! These are my favorite cookies. I added more vanilla (about twice the amount) as I didn’t have butter shortening, but regular (no flavor there!). The dough wasn’t crumbly as many had stated, but this might have to do with the fact it’s warm in my kitchen and the shortening was soft. I used a fudge recipe for the frosting, and put a small piece on top of each cookie for the last half of baking.
Absolutely delicious! I split the dough, flavouring half with chocolate and half with almond, and then shaped each ball of dough into a sausage shape. I then twisted the two different flavours of dough together and smoothed the sides to form one long, stripey roll of cookie dough! It looked so pretty that I decided to split this long roll in two again, rolling each half in different colour sprinkles. Once chilled, the consistency was perfect for slicing the dough into individual cookies. I would really recommend this recipe, though I did have to add some milk before I could chill it, as the mixture was very dry without!
Superb. flakey, light and delicious.
One of the Best cookies I have ever made. Tastes just like what you can remember getting at bakery! I used butter flavored crisco and chopped pecans, because thats what I had. Hubby loved them!
These got rave reviews at work. I had to add water to make the dough manageable. Otherwise it was crumbs.
Wow! These are amazing! I was pretty worried because they were awfully crumbly when I was try to roll into a log, but after sitting in the fridge it made them stick a bit more and they are just perfect. I will definitely make again. I also got 3-4 dozen out of these ingredients as listed.
I made these exactly as the recipe stated. They are identical tasting to the ones I buy at our local grocery store. They are great. The only slight problem for me was the dough was dry and crumbled a bit when trying to roll it.
I must have done something wrong, but I didn’t have a good experience with these. I omitted walnuts and took other peoples recommendations and added the cocoa powder. They turned out looking like doodoo…the dough was not dough like. It was like it needed flour to become dough. It was runny, but not runny. I’m not making sense, but I followed the recipe exactly except for the walnuts and the cocoa powder. *sigh* I had so much hopes for this cookie, but I guess I’m doing it wrong. If anyone knows what I did wrong, let me know.
My sister made these cookies for a Chinese New Year celebration we were attending. I love these cookies…..I’m sure I ate more than my share! Can’t wait to make them for myself!! One of the best cookies I have ever tasted!
I do the same as the last reviewer and these are the BEST COOKIES. They are EXACTLY like the bakery. I take a blob of the dough and mix in some Special Dark cocoa, like maybe 1/3 cup. No measuring really! I also do not put so much melted ganache in center. I have also pressed the center dot into chocolate jimmies. If you run into someone who knows what a Chinese Cookie is, they will fall over when they taste them. EXCELLENT
This recipe is a very good base for the start of NY style chinese cookies. I added 1/2 tsp of almond extract and then marbled the dough with taking 1/3 of dough and adding in 1/3 c. of cocoa. Take and press it into the vanilla dough I omitted the walnuts as they gave it different taste then what I remember chinese cookies to have. I also melted chocolate chips with a bit of heavy cream to make the chocolate dollap in the center YUM