Romania - Cornulete cu gem

How cute are these?! I can’t imagine anyone that wouldn’t be thrilled to see these sitting atop your coffee table, ready to devour. These are made with a very tender, almost melt-in-your-mouth dough using sour cream and egg yolks. It can be a little tricky to work with which is why it needs a good chill in the fridge overnight. Inside these croissant shaped morsels are jam and walnuts. I used a lovely small batch blackcurrant jam but I’ve also seen them stuffed with Turkish Delight or Nutella!

Ingredients - Makes 48 mini cookies

Dough:
1 tsp. dried yeast
1 tsp. caster sugar
30g whole milk

210g plain flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
120g unsalted butter, cold
120g sour cream
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Filling:
160g jam (I used a good quality blackcurrant jam)
80g walnuts, finely chopped
Icing sugar, to dust

Method

The day before:
You’ll need to make the dough the day before to give it a chance to firm up and rest overnight in the fridge. Start by warming the milk until tepid (not too hot), stir in the yeast and sugar. Let sit at room temp for 10 minutes until it has formed a kind of bubbly froth on top.

Place the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Cut the cold butter into cubes and add it into the bowl. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. In a small bowl mix together the sour cream, egg yolks and vanilla. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the bubbly yeast along with the sour cream mix. Mix together using a wooden spoon until you have a dough (it will be very sticky.) Lay a piece of clingfilm out onto your worktop and dump your dough into the middle in a mound. Fold the clingfilm around the dough to encase it, pat it flat and place into the fridge overnight.

The next day:
In a bowl, mix together the jam and finely chopped walnuts for the filling. Set aside. Line 2 or 3 baking trays with baking paper.

Place the chilled dough onto a floured worktop and divide into four even pieces. Roll each piece into a circle until fairly thin (3-4mm thick.) Cut the dough into 12 pieces as if you were cutting a pizza. First in half, then in half again to create 4 pieces. Then cut each quarter into three even slices so you have 12 mini rectangles. Since this dough can be quite soft and fragile, I like to work with one piece of dough at a time and place the other pieces back into the fridge until needed.

You can now preheat your oven to 170°C while you shape the cookies.

Place a 1/4 tsp of filling onto the base of each rectangle before rolling up to the top. You should be left with a little croissant shaped cookie. Place onto your prepared baking tray and continue with the other cookies, leaving just over half an inch between them.

Once all your cookies are shaped, bake for approx. 15 minutes until golden brown. Leave to cool before rolling in icing sugar and serving.