My dad’s favorite. Raspberry (or filling of your choice) filled sugar cookies.

• Makes 24 cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. shortening
• 1/2 c. butter, softened
• 1 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp.baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 3 1/4 c. flour plus more for rolling out
• 1 jar raspberry preserves (or fruit filling of your choice)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400º and line a few cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda, stir a bit with a fork to evenly mix.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or you can do this with a handheld mixer, whichever), add in the butter, shortening and sugar. Mix on low until all three are just starting to incorporate then increase the speed to medium and cream the butter/shortening/sugar. It should look light and fluffy. Cloud-like, really.

Add in the eggs and vanilla and mix on low speed until evenly combined.

Add in the dry ingredients and mix until a soft dough forms. If it’s too sticky, add in a little flour, but not too much or it will dry out when it’s time to roll them.

It helps at this stage to form the dough into a ball, wrap in saran wrap and put it in the fridge for a half hour to firm up a little. It will just make it a bit easier to roll out.

Take a bit of flour and dust the counter top. Take a handful of the dough (I like to roll out a small bit at a time, keeps the dough from drying out too fast) and turn it onto the floured surface. Flour your rolling pin and roll out the dough to a rectangular-ish shape, about 1/8” thick. For crispier cookies, roll them thinner, for softer cookies, roll them out thicker. They don’t rise really so whatever thickness they are is about where they’ll stay.

Using a cookie cutter (preferably something round since they’ll be filled, but you could use a star, heart, snowflake. Really whatever suits your fancy or what you have on hand). Using a spatula, transfer the cookies to a cookie sheet. You’ll need to repeat this several times until you have used up about half of the dough.

Once you have about 6-8 cookies on each sheet, spoon about a teaspoon of jelly on the center of each cookie. These are the bottom cookies. Repeat the last step, rolling and cutting out the top layers. Gently press a top cookie onto each bottom cookie, lightly pressing the sides down to seal.

Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes or until just golden on the edges. If you have a small oven or one that’s older or cooks unevenly, you might want to switch pans and oven racks about halfway through.

Transfer to wire cooling racks. Enjoy!