Rainbow Cookies
Italian Rainbow Cookies are moist, cake-like cookies rich with the flavors of almond paste and chocolate. This traditional favorite has been around for decades and makes a great dessert any time of year.
Ingredients:
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
4 eggs
1/2 lb. almond paste, grated
1 Tbsp. almond extract
Zest of one lemon, finely chopped
2 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
Red and green liquid food color
Rasberry jelly
12 oz. chocolate chips
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease three 9″ baking pans.
- Combine butter and sugar in mixer until light in color.
- Add eggs to mixer, beating in one at a time.
- Add almond paste, lemon zest and almond extract beating until almond paste is blended evenly into batter.
- In a separate bowl, combine salt and flour.
- Add flour mixture to butter mixture and beat until fully combined.
- Place 1/3 of batter in to one bowl and another 1/3 of batter into another bowl.
- In one bowl, add a few drops of green food color and mix until evenly distributed.
- In the second bowl, do the same with red food color.
- Empty contents of green batter into one greased pan, the red batter into another and the uncolored batter into the 3rd pan.
- Bake for 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.
- Allow to cool another 10 minutes and invert on to a wire rack.
- When cool, spread green cookie layer with a thin layer of raspberry jelly. Top with the uncolored layer and then add another thin layer of raspberry jelly. Place the red cookie layer on top.
- Place plastic wrap on top of the cookie layers, a pan on top of the plastic and then some type of weight on top of the pan (fruit or vegetables will do the trick). Allow the weighted cookie layers to sit in the refrigerator for a few hours.
- Melt chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl in the microwave for 60 seconds. Stir and reheat at 30 second intervals being careful not to overheat. 16. Spread chocolate over the top of the cookie layer. Refrigerate. When the chocolate is firm, invert the cookie layers and spread chocolate on the opposite side. When firm, slice to create 1″ thick cookies.
