This time of year, I make my family’s Ice Cream Kolackies. They are the opposite of fancy and they definitely aren’t pretty the way I make them, but they are quintessential comfort food and they mean holidays to me. They are a pain to make unless you have a big mixer, so I get TONS of requests when I make them from my family who don’t want to make the cement-like dough. Hope you enjoy!
I America-Test-Kitchen’d this a while ago, so trust me on this recipe:
ICE CREAM KOLACKIES
1 lb/4 stick of salted butter
4 cups of flour
1 pint of the cheapest vanilla ice cream you can get. [This is usually only purchasable in half gallons, so use half of that container. Good ice cream doesn’t make it turn out as well. I’ve tried.]
Jam of your choosing [Apricot is traditional, as is using Solo brand cans of poppyseed or prune filling. You do you.]
Cream cheese
Sugar
Vanilla
1. Blend the cold butter in the kitchen aid mixer with the tulip shaped mixer piece to break it up. Do not melt or room-temperature it.
2. Mix in frozen ice cream. This will be like cement now. [Now, imagine what it was like learning this with Grandma when you had to make it by hand. With my Grandma’s ‘sweet’ demeanor 😉 #memories ]
3. Mix in the flour one cup at a time. I usually switch to the dough hook at this point. Don’t mix too much though, as you don’t want the dough to get gummy. End result should be tacky to the touch with visible tiny globs of butter.
4. Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla to taste in a separate bowl. Usually the whole brick of cream cheese, a teaspoon of vanilla and a few tablespoons of sugar.
5. Spoon sloppy cookie sized pieces onto a parchment lined tray.
6. Thumbprint each and fill with jam or cheese filling. Jam may run onto parchment during cooking, jelly definitely will, so spoon accordingly.
7. Cook at 350 for about 10 min, or until the bottom of cookies are just browning. The cookies will seem not cooked all the way when you take them out. Carefully transfer them to a cooling rack.
8. Cool and reline each tray with parchment before using for the next batch.
9. Use wax paper or parchment if you wrap with cellophane or stack the cookies so the jam doesn’t stick.
Joi Podgorny 