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Pasta Frolla (Italian for “short pastry”) is a pastry dough that is used in many Italian recipes. It’s rich and buttery with a hint of lemon. While it’s often used in sweet recipes – like today’s Pasta Frolla Christmas Jam Cookies (as well as this recipe) – it can also be used in savory recipes that call for a shortbread crust!
Either way – pasta frolla is wonderfully versatile, delicious and very simple to make! Unlike many shortbread recipes where cold butter is cut in to form the dough, in pasta frolla the butter is softened and creamed so it mixes up quickly and easily!
We used pasta frolla today as the base for these delicious Christmas Jam Cookies! It’s a recipe that we adapted from one that Jack and I brought back after our honeymoon in Italy.
After you mix the dough, it’s rolled into a log and chilled until firm. Then the log is sliced – and similar to a “thumbprint” cookie – an indentation is formed in the middle of the cookie by pressing down with your thumb, then fill the indentation with a spoon of your favorite jam (we used our Christmas Jam recipe) and bake!
Once these sweet, crisp jam-filled shortbread cookies are baked and cooled, sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.
The pasta frolla dough can be made in advance and kept tightly-wrapped in the refrigerated for a few days – or you can even freeze it for about a month.
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Pasta Frolla Christmas Jam Cookies
This pastry dough can be used in a variety of recipes including cookies or for a tart.
As written, the ingredients list will give you enough dough to bake between 36-48 cookies depending on thickness. Feel free to cut the recipe in half if you’d like to make fewer (18-24) cookies – OR make the full dough amount and save half in the freezer for another recipe.
Ingredients
For the Dough:
2 sticks butter (1 cup or 16 tablespoons), softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla
Zest from one whole lemon
4 cups flour
For Garnish:
1/2 to 1 cup Christmas Jam or other berry jam
Powdered sugar for dusting
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream butter then add both sugars and salt. Cream until fluffy, about two minutes.
- With mixer on low, add the eggs and egg yolks one at a time until mixed.
- Add vanilla and zest and mix again.
- With mixer on low, add each cup of flour until combined.
- Remove from bowl and knead by hand for about a minute.
- Refrigerate dough wrapped in plastic for up to three days or at least for two hours.
- Assuming you will only be baking 18-24 cookies, remove dough, cut in half and refrigerate other half for another recipe (like this one), or freeze for up to a month.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- On lightly floured surface, flatten and work dough so that it becomes soft and pliable but not warm.
- Roll into a log and either cut into 18 or 24 pieces depending on how large you want the cookies. For 18, cut log in half. Cut each half in thirds and each third in thirds. For 24, cut log in half, each half in half, each quarter in half, then each piece in thirds. An 18 count cookie will be about 2-2 1/2 inches.
- Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper
- Roll each dough piece into a ball then press down with the palm of your hand. With your thumb, make an indentation into the center of each then lay out on the sheet pans.
- With a teaspoon, fill each indentation with Christmas Jam, being careful not to fill too high.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes (depending on the size) until lightly golden.
- Remove to a cooling rack.
- Once cool, dust with powdered sugar.
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I typically don’t try recipes off the internet, but thought I’d give it a try. These cookies are disgusting. Absolutely no flavor…at all, and they’re rock hard; break your tooth hard. What a waste of ingredients and my time. Not a happy girl.
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Thanks for sharing your feedback Angela. It definitely sounds like something went quite wrong Angela – these should be softer and sweet like sugar cookies.
Sorry but this dough recipe did not work for me. I think it’s missing something. The dough just did not come together and kept crumbling. Threw the whole batch away.
I’m sorry you had an issue with the recipe Mila.
Please optimize your pictures for mobile devices. Using Google page speed testing, your site measures 48 and 68 out of 100 on mobile devices, which is very poor performance. and nearly impossible to look at.
I was wanting to look at your pasta frolla cookie recipe and could not do that. They really look delicious and beautiful.
Thanks for your feedback Janis! My apologies for the issues you are having viewing our site. We are making some changes to our site in the coming months which should help improve our site speed. Thanks for taking the time to write to us today.
In the method you mention two types of flour but I can’t seem to find mention of two types in the actual ingredients? Or maybe it’s just me! Merry Christmas from Australia.
Hi Lyndsay – Sorry for the confusion – what we meant was add each of the 4 cups of flour, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. But it’s all the all-purpose flour. (We do mention two types of sugar however – granulated and powdered sugar…) Hope that helps clarify!
I love these, so pretty! And thanks for the lesson…I had no idea what pasta frolla was. 🙂
These look amazing! Love the idea of Christmas jam.
These are sheer perfection. I just want to sink my teeth into a few of these. Love how festive these are. They look like there’s snow floating on them, love that.
Love jam filled cookies. Perfect for my morning cup of coffee. And for snack and for after dinner too! 😉
I love any cookies with jam – always have, always will. I am looking forward to making these.
Me too Stephanie – hope you enjoy the cookies!
So festive! I’ve used pasta frolla for tart crust but not for cookies – these sound fab!