The Italian peach cookies are the party trick — soft vanilla biscuits sandwiched with mascarpone and peach jam, blushed with colouring and rolled in sugar until they look uncannily like tiny peaches (a weekend project for sure).
Bake them pale rather than golden, as the colour comes later, and hollow each one out with a teaspoon to make room for the filling. A mint leaf at the join completes the illusion. Fiddly, yes, but worth it for the ‘oohs’ when they hit the table — plus the kids love these.
* The portions in the below recipe indicate the number of cookies it will bake.
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.
Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
In a separate bowl, beat together the butter and sugar for a few minutes to combine, then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition.
Add in the milk and vanilla and mix briefly, then add the dry mixture and combine to form a soft, pliable dough.
Roll the dough into 30 equal balls and place onto lined baking trays, leaving a little room between them so they don’t stick together while baking.
Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until pale golden rather than deeply browned — you don’t want too much colour on the cookies as you will be colouring them later on.
Set aside to cool on a wire rack. Then, when cool, use a small spoon or knife to carefully scoop a little from the flat underside of each biscuit to hollow them out slightly.
To make the filling, whisk the butter until smooth, then add the mascarpone and whisk again until there are no lumps. Gradually add the icing sugar, whisking until you have a thick, spreadable icing, then add the vanilla bean paste and peach jam and whisk again just to combine. Set aside.
To assemble, fill one hollow biscuit with the peach icing, then sandwich with another biscuit, repeating until all your peaches are assembled.
Lightly dip or brush the peaches with the liqueur mixture, adding a little red and yellow colouring to create a peach-like appearance. Finally, roll in caster sugar and add a mint leaf at the join to resemble a peach leaf.