Note: This Sour Cream Biscuits recipe was originally part of my Biscuit Advent Calendar, a one-recipe-a-day email series in December. You can find the other recipes and sign up for the next round if you want here.
Today’s recipe has an unusual Christmas baking ingredient: sour cream. I included it because I think it’s quite fun to make. This is the Cordon Bleu of biscuits so to speak: you shape it, then dip it in egg and roll it in sugar before baking. I would say that these ones taste better when they are on the fresher side although they do keep a week and probably more.
Another thing that makes these biscuits unusual is that, for once (and only once), there is no sugar in the dough itself. All the sweetness comes from the inside -the jam filling- and the outside: the cinnamon-sugar crunch.
Jam
For this iteration I used jam from a bush that grows in my garden: Cornelian cherries. They are native to Europe and in jam form very tasty (they can be eaten fresh but they are rather sour). The jam is also very red, something they have in common with rosehips, which also make excellent jam.
Any type of jam works, though personally I like a tart one as it offsets the pastry and the sugary exterior best.
The biscuits do split open a little, that’s quite normal as it’s very hard to close them without any jam spilling out. The ones in the picture below had a little more cinnamon sugar on top than the ones above. But they are otherwise from the same batch. It’s interesting how different they look.
Sour Cream (or not quite)
Dairy products vary enormously, every country has their own versions. This recipe really calls for Schmand which is quite a fatty type of sour cream (20-25%). Since that is quite niche, I tried it this time by substituting with Greek (full fat) yogurt and whipping cream and it works perfectly well. You could also substitute other sour dairy with a similar fat content.
Gefüllte Sauerrahmplätzchen Recipe
Makes about 50 (two trays)
Ingredients
- 250 g plain flour
- 175 g butter
- 75 g Schmand OR 60 g Greek yogurt + 1 tbsp cream
- pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp milk
- 75 g sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 150 g jam (there will be leftovers)
Instructions
Make the dough
Knead flour, butter, sour cream (or alternative) and salt until you have a smooth dough, then chill overnight.
Shape and bake
Preheat the oven to 200°C conventional.
Roll the dough quite thinly to about 3 mm or a bit less and cut out 5 cm circles.
Place 1/2 tsp jam into the middle and fold, then press the sides shut with your fingers or a fork. It is hard not to have jam spilling out, you definitely need less of it than you think.
Mix the egg and milk in one bowl, sugar and cinnamon in another.
Dip the biscuits first in the egg wash then roll in the sugar.
Bake for 12-14 minutes until golden brown. Let cool on a tray.
Pack them gently into tins or boxes. Like I said at the start they are best eaten within a week or even very fresh although you can keep them for longer.
Enjoy!!