[Sca-cooks] Kiffles, was: Question to the List - Sweet Turkish Crescents

[afmurphy at juno.com]

Thank you!

Is that an 8 oz. package of cream cheese?

Anne



On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 22:35:36 -0400 Tara <tsersen at nni.com> writes:
> > Recipe please!  My mouth is watering and the weather is cool enough
> today to
> > bake.
>
> Sure!  :)
>
> Kiffles
> -------
> Serves: There are never enough kiffles to go around.
> Calories: Too darned many, considering you can never eat just one.
> Or
> ten.
> Preparation time: There's a reason we only make these at Christmas
> time...
>
> Pastry:
> 2 c. flour
> 2 sticks butter
> 1 package cream cheese
> Cream ingredients together, break into workable sized pieces,
> refrigerate.  When cold, roll out as finely as possible and cut
> into
> long diamonds, about 6"x3" on the diagonals.  Fill, roll, bake at
> 375f
> for about 13 minutes.  When cool, drop them in a bag of powdered
> sugar
> or sprinkle it on with a flour sifter.
>
> Fillings:
> Apricot butter (if you live in eastern PA, Bauman's is *great*.)
> Prune butter (lekvar, can find it in cans at the grocery, or
> sometimes
> at ethnic delis.)
> Nut (ground walnuts and/or pecans, a bit of butter, and beaten egg
> whites to make 'em stick together.  I usually do 3/4 walnuts, 1/4
> pecans.)
> Poppyseed (I never liked this one, so I don't have a recipe for it.
> I
> expect it would be like the nuts.)
>
> Hints:
> Put the filling about 1/3 of the way between one of the long points
> and
> the center of the diamond, not right in the center.  Fold the
> corner
> over the filling, then put your index fingers on the corners thus
> made
> and roll it up, keeping the corners nice and tightly sealed.  Bend
> it
> into a crescent as you put it on the cookie sheet.
> Fiddle with the filling amounts.  The fruit butters tend to expand a
> lot
> when baking, and if there's too much in any one kiffle it may pop,
> ruining both it and the one next to it.  Well, they're never
> ruined,
> they're just too ugly to serve.  You have to eat those ones quickly
> so
> nobody finds out...  I find that fruit butters take about 1/2 tsp
> each,
> and the nut filling takes about 3/4 - 1 tsp.
> If you can't roll the pastry out finely enough in sheets, try
> breaking
> off walnut sized pieces and rolling them individually into ovals. I
> can't quite read newsprint through mine, but I can discern the
> printed
> lines from the paper background.
> I used margerine instead of butter by accident one year.  Made the
> flakiest darned pastry I've ever eaten.  But, the dough was so oily
> and
> difficult to handle that I'll never do it again.
> Make extras.  They go fast.  Take any that break on the cookie sheet
> and
> use them as distractions to try to protect the rest from your
> family.  I
> usually toss them to my husband, who stands salivating in the
> doorway,
> as I package and hide the rest.
>
> Have fun!
> Magdalena
>
> P.S. Hey!  There are bunches of people on this list in the Eastern
> PA
> area, say within a 3-hour drive of Lehigh Valley.  Anybody want to
> do a
> cookie exchange at Christmas?  The ones I've seen at work always end
> up
> being mostly plain ol' chocolate chip and sugar cookies.  But, I
> suspect
> that with this crowd we could get some darned cool treats going
> around!
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