The Ischler

Whew, what a crazy week of holiday mayhem.  Good mayhem, but tiring nonetheless.  Christmas concerts, gingerbread baking and home building, Christmas cookies, and The Ischler.  Having baked my fair share of cookies, my initial impression was a bit skeptical as a number of fellow bakers have been kind of "meh" about it.

Feeling tired and exhausted from baking enough gingerbread for 25 homes, I sure hope my son’s fellow 2nd graders love their homes... 

I dove in and started working on this new and somewhat elusive cookie.

I decided to forego the mixer and use the food processor, as Rose provides instructions for both methods.  It turned out to be quite effective and time efficient...which meant a lot considering how tired my feet were tonight...

Having worried so much about my ingredients for the gingerbread homes, I used dry roasted almonds, as that's the only type of Almonds I could find in the pantry.  

After mixing, the dough definitely needs to be chilled; otherwise you'll be quietly muttering curse words to yourself- well that's what I do anyway because my 7 year old seems to have developed super sonic ears for anything even resembling a "bad word."  It reminds me of when your learning a new language and the first words everyone wants to know are "the bad ones."

Anyway, after the dough is chilled, you can roll it out to whatever thickness you desire.  Because this dough is quite delicate, I chose to go for delicate all around and rolled it quite thin and used cutters on the small side.  I wanted more of a bite size cookie.  

Given the time of year, I wanted to try a holiday theme as well, which turned out quite well.

Bake time is very quick,  (which means you can get to eating even quicker!)  ;)  So, don't find yourself busy with too many other tasks, otherwise you'll find yourself with brown and crumbly cookies.  

The traditional Ischler is filled with Apricot Lekvar, which Rose provides the instructions for, and then dipped in chocolate.  Rose took a few liberties and recommends filling each cookie with a layer of Lekvar and chocolate ganache.  Although, I haven't tasted the traditional method, I enjoyed having a balance of both fillings in each bite.  I'm not sure I would make these cookies regularly, but given their uniqueness, I would definitely use them for special occasions!