Grandmother's Jam Filled Lard Cookies (2024)

Grandmother’s Jam Filled Lard Cookies are low sugar perfect vintage afternoon snack our grandmother used to make. You may fill them with any of your favourite jam!

To continue with ancient foods and ingredients, here you can read about my childhood cookies. Lard is in the dough to replace sour cream, and therefore they are so flaky.

Why use lard instead of butter in baking?

Using lard in cookies creates a different texture (some say sandier) and of course the lard vs. butter in pie crusts is a war that well never be won. In general, lard will often bring a more savory note to your baking (some say ‘piggy’) which can add a nice complexity and depth. And of course, many people use a combination of both. For more, go to thekitchn .

She used to make two or three batches because once the whole family gathered, they were gone in a flash. If there would be any plate left, she wrapped some cookies for every car to have for the road!!!!

I had no idea lard was used to make these perfect vintage cookies recipe as with many other desserts she used to make. It took me years to start cooking on my own to understand how very healthy and simple everything was when she was supervising the kitchen business. Her sandwich cookies or Easy Rugelach Recipe always included homemade ingredients. So were this jam filled lard cookies
Here is the lard photo I used to make this batch of jam filled lard cookies:

Since we had a large orchard just across the wine yard, we all used to make jams in late summer and autumn; plum, apple and quince were our favourite and she filled the cookies, rolls and crepes with them.

Male adults were making grappa during our canning and preserving sessions, both of the groups singing right out loud but for different reasons, LOL.
I also make jams ( and jams only ?) from scratch and here are two of them I used to fill these lard cookies :
Nasturtium Orange Jam
And
Blackberry Jam

How to shape these filled lard cookies?
So, after kneading and resting, you roll the dough and cut the squares just like this :

Below are the instructions and following them, you get 32 jam filled cookies. Preparation time does not include yeast activating and dough resting time ( 25 mins all together ). Also, if you manage to keep the cookies for seven days (congratulations if you do!?) they keep well on covered cookie platter and don’t change the taste a single bit !

One practical advice:

How do you thicken jam for cookie filling?

You can make your own fruit filling by using homemade or store-bought jam and thickening it up a bit bysimmering it with some cornstarch mixed with water(about a tablespoon of cornstarch mixed with a teaspoon or so of cold water to make a paste, then stir into ½ to ¾ cup of jam

Ingredients

1Tbspfresh cake yeast
1Tbspmilk
1Tbspsugar
3 ½cupall-purpose flour
1 ½cuplard
2eggs
4Tbspmilk
16Tbspjam
6Tbspicing sugar

Instructions

In a mug, combine cake yeast, 1 Tbsp milk and 1 Tbsp sugar. Leave aside for 10 mins.
On a clean flat working surface, knead, using your hands, flour, lard, eggs, milk and yeast mixture.
When you get nice smooth dough, half it and leave to rise for 15 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180 C / 356 F.
Cover sheet pan with parchment paper and leave aside.
Roll the first dough to get 12 x 12 inches square and cut to 16 equal squares. Doing that, you get 3 - inch squares.
Place ½ Tbsp jam in the center of each square. Overlap opposite corners of squares, pressing the dough together.
Transfer filled cookies on parchment paper and bake for 13 minutes.
Put powdered sugar in a shallow bowl.
Once filled cookies are done, remove them from the parchemnt paper and roll them in icing sugar while still hot.
Place the cookies on the plate to serve.

Grandmother's Jam Filled Lard Cookies (2024)

Ingredients

Instructions

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