About Recipe

Wow....has this month been crazy!! December always is, but I know many of you can relate with all there is to do for the holidays, (and it seems to have gotten the best of me this year!) I've been baking up a storm the last couple weeks, (when I can- that is!), and this is one of the cookies I recently made- that I absolutely LOVE! I've mentioned a few times before that I am half Czech, and this is a recipe for a very simple, yet delicate, cookie that hails from the Czech/Moravian/Slovaks, as well as Russia. **In Russia, this cookie is known as "Geese Feet". I would say that this would be a cross between a pie crust, and Kolaczki dough. It has a wonderful layered "puff" to it, (thanks to the layers of butter and cottage cheese!), and instead of just layering the dough with plain sugar, I've put my own spin on these classics by adding the lemon and lime zest for a subtle, and fresh citrus flavor! Now, cottage cheese might seem like an odd ingredient for a cookie, but it's a great substitute for what the European's or Russians would call "Farmer's Cheese". There are some places in the U.S. that may actually carry this cheese, and if you can easily find it, by all means use it! This is an old style recipe which involves actually grating the butter for the dough. (Yes- I said "grating"!) The purpose is to get the fat into finer pieces to be dispersed throughout the dough more evenly- vs. having larger "chunks" by cutting it. If you want to simply use a pastry cutter, then make this as you would a pie crust by first cutting the butter into the flour, and then adding the cheese, egg yolks, and the other ingredients, and mix by hand. I personally did grate the butter, (really doesn't take too long!), and actually mixed this in my Kitchen Aid mixer. Super easy! The sugar will caramelize a bit during the baking process, which adds to the sweet crunch of the cookie, and when you take a bite, yo

Ingredients