Bubbie's Cookies - or - The Original Potchke

By Gracie, Molly, Julie, Liza, and Emeline

Bubbie's cookies are a sacred thing in Shore/Friedman history. Our parents and aunts and uncles and cousins all remember these flaky, filled cookies and rave about them. The only problem is that few attempts to make Bubbie's cookies have been made in the past few decades, and a lot of it was based on memory.

This potchke was an attempt to re-create the magic of Bubbie's cookies - working from the following, decidedly un-modern, recipe - in order to save them for posterity! Our additions and clarifications of the recipe will follow the pictures.

Dough--
2 cups (1 lb. shortening – Crisco)
2 cups flour
Pinch salt (?)
Mix into a paste

3 cups flour
2 egg yolks
½ cup vinegar
¾ cup water (about
Make flour into a well, stir and add water (about ¾ cup) add egg yolks and vinegar
Until soft dough is formed

Roll out dough ½ “ thick and spread paste over the dough. Rollup and refrigerate overnight.

Filling--
1 box raisins (white) blend w/water ‘till chopped
Pour off water and strain, a little at a time
Apples (big – ½ dozen) peel and grate, toss out core
Sugar, at least ½ cup
Add not too much cinnamon, (2 tsp.?)
Add pulverized nuts or bread crumbs or both

Grated apple (don't forget to toss out the core!)


Chopping raisins


Adding almond meal to the filling


Dough!


Filling the dough


Dough rolled...


And look at those beauties, about to bake!


Regarding the dough-- interestingly, two cups of Crisco is slightly less than a pound (I think we decided there were about six extra tablespoons in the jar of Crisco). We went by the two cup measurement and everything seemed fine. This made quite a lot of "paste," so I don't think any more would have been needed! We did add the pinch of salt. The second part of the dough recipe turned out to be just about right. Start with 1/2 cup of water, and go slow before you add more. You don't want your dough to be too wet. We rolled the dough out to closer to 1/4", and folded it (letter-style, multiple times, rotating it), rather than rolled it. We refrigerated our dough for about 36 hours. Oh-- and don't be alarmed by the vinegar smell emanating from your dough. You won't taste it!

Moving on to the filling. We used six average-sized apples. The raisins were the most interesting part. We had one 15-oz box of white raisins-- Auntie Gracie remembered her mom, our Bubbie, chopping them in a blender. We tried a mini food processor, and succeeded only in making a mess. Luckily, an immersion blender worked like a charm. You don't want the raisins quite pureed, but you want them slightly broken up-- a few pulses will do it. We also drained off all of the water we could. To the raisin/apple mix, we added the 1/2 cup of sugar, a scant cup of almond meal, and probably almost a tablespoon of cinnamon. Add your almond meal slowly-- our apples and raisins were pretty moist, so we ended up putting in more than anticipated.

Note-- this is the EXACT amount of filling needed for your Bubbie cookies if you have five people in the kitchen sneaking spoonfuls. Otherwise, you may end up with extra!

We worked with the dough in quarters. Flour your surface VERY well. ExTREMEly well. This dough is super wet, and extra flour won't hurt it. Roll out the dough pretty thin-- close to 1/8", I'd say. You can try to roll it into a long, thin rectangle, but it's no big deal. Any scraps can just be re-rolled later. Make a line of filling down the middle of the dough, and use less than you think. You don't want filling oozing out or making the cookies too mushy.

Fold the dough over towards you, kind of sealing the filling in along the edge with your fingers. Trim off excess dough, leaving only about 1/4" excess. Use a knife to "fringe" the edges, then cut into 2-3" cookies. Form the cookies into a crescent, then bake at 350 degrees for at least 30 minutes (this was a huge shocker for me). You want them to be really nice and golden brown, so you may find yourself going close to 40 or 45 minutes. Sprinkle them liberally with powdered sugar, and ENJOY!

Shore tip: when eating, hold your hand under your mouth to catch all of the flaky crumbs!

Potchke mission accomplished! Generations of Shores to come will be enjoying Bubbie's cookies.