Ingredients
- 1-1/3 cups salted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure real vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons grated orange peel or zest
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 to 3 tablespoons milk
Filling
- 1 package (9 ounces) mincemeat
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons grated orange peel or zest
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel or zest
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts or other nuts, optional
Directions
- Cookies: In large bowl, cream together butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Stir in grated orange peel.
- In another bowl, mix together flour and baking powder; stir into creamed mixture alternately with milk.
- Divide dough in half and chill.
- On lightly floured surface, roll out one half of dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut with 2-3/4-inch round cookie cutter. With butter knife, cut an X (star) in center of half the cookies (this is top part of cookie). Repeat with remaining dough.
- Filling: In small saucepan, break mincemeat into pieces. Add sugar, orange peel, lemon peel, orange juice and lemon juice. Heat. Stir until all lumps are broken; simmer for 1 minute; cool. Stir in nuts.
- To assemble cookies: Place 1 heaping teaspoon filling on each plain cookie; top with star-cut top cookie. Press edges together with fork to seal.
- Bake at 375°F for 12 minutes.
Rediscover mincemeat with these buttery and delicious filled star mincemeat cookies. A reader updates this festive filled cookie recipe from a 1968 cookbook.
Many of the recipes we received did not include orange or other flavoring. Jenifer-Joan Lauren, Lakebay, Washington, sends a recipe she found in the Better Home and Gardens Cookies and Candies cookbook that was published in 1968. As all good cooks do, Jenifer-Joan has made the recipe her own: “I never use shortening, which the original recipe calls for, and I substitute salted butter and leave out the salt all together. I also double the orange (peel) zest.”