Italian Rainbow Cookies

By KimberlySeverino

Ingredients

• 7 oz almond paste
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 3/4 cup butter (room temperature)
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 15 drops of green food coloring
• 15 drops of red food coloring
• 2/3 cup apricot or raspberry preserves
• 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
• 1 tsp shortening/Crisco

Preparation

Step 1

1. Preheat Oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease 3 8"x8" metal baking pans. After greasing, line the bottoms of the pans with wax paper, smoothing the paper down onto the pan. Grease the tops of the wax paper and then flour the pans. Put aside.

3. In a large bowl, beat together the Almond Paste, Sugar, Almond Extract and butter until well blended. (there might be some small lumps of Almond Paste remaining and that's fine).

4. Reduce speed to medium and beat in the eggs one at a time until blended. Reduce speed to low and then add the flour and salt slowly to the mixture until combined

5. Take two small bowls and add 1 rounded cup of batter into each bowl. (there should be another rounded cup of batter still in the original mixing bowl.). Add 15 drops of red food color to one bowl,15 drops of green food color to another, and no drops of food coloring to the last. Stir each bowl until evenly blended with color.

6. Spoon the batter into separate pans. Bake until set and toothpick inserted in center of layers comes out clean; approx. 10-12 minutes. Cool in pans on wire rack about 1/2 hour.

7. Lay a piece of wax paper on a flat surface. Take the red layer and flip over pan onto wax paper. Gently pull off the wax paper. Spread 1/3 cup of preserves onto the red layer. Take the plain colored layer and remove from pan. Place it onto the red layer with the wax paper side up. Press down gently and then remove the wax paper.

8. Spread remaining 1/3 cup of Apricot preserves onto the plain colored layer. Take the remaining green layer and remove from pan and place upon the plain colored layer again with the wax paper side up. Press down gently and remove the wax paper.

9. In a 1 quart saucepan, heat chocolate and butter flavored crisco over low heat, stirring frequently, until melted. Spread melted chocolate mixture on top of the green layer evenly.

10. Refrigerate until chocolate is firm, at least 1 hour.

11. To serve, with a large sharp knife, trim about 1/4 inch from the edges. Cut the stacked layers into 6 strips. Cut each strip crosswise into 6 pieces. You will get 36 square cookies from this.

12. Place the cookies in a single layer in a waxed paper lined container. They can be refrigerated for up to one week or freeze up to 3 months. These cookies must be kept in the fridge.