TRADITIONAL FOOD SERIES: DANISH KIRSEBAERKUGLER

Hello my friends...Danni here form Silo Hill Farm and it's my turn to share a traditional recipe from my heritage.  

 I'm Danish, mostly, and I would love to tell you how I grew up eating tons of wonderful Danish food, baked by my apron-wearing mother, using recipes handed down to her from generations dating back to the 1600's while my grandfather told us Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales.  
But no.
Although my Danish Grandfather did not read us stories, his name was Hans.  Actually, he had 6 names...Janse Hanse Peter Theodore Leo Martensen, to be exact, because if the Danish can make something more difficult, they will.  This Danish recipe, however, will be simple and tasty, I promise.

I can tell you that when I was a child, on Christmas Eve and visions of sugarplums danced in my head, they looked like this....

 Yeah.....that's a cherry inside that wonderful, flaky Danish pastry dough and then covered with cream icing. So much easier to make than they are to say!  You can just call them "Cherry Balls" if you want.
Here's what you need to make them.

•  1/2 cup softened butter
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 cups flour (just regular all-purpose flour)
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp vanilla or almond flavoring (I used half of each)
• Maraschino Cherries

Icing:  

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2-3 Tbsp. heavy cream
• 1 tsp. vanilla

This recipe made 16 Cherry Balls.  You can double it if you want more, but you should divide the dough in half and cover one while you work with the other so it doesn't dry out.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix butter and sugar to a creamy consistency.  Add flour, salt and vanilla.  Mix with your fingers.  

 Don't mess with Heritage recipes...if it says use your fingers, use your fingers.  This dough comes out so flaky..like pie crust. Just mix it until all of the ingredients are combined and it looks a little crumbly, about like pie crust dough.

 Now you are ready to wrap the dough around the cherries.  I know that many Danish women pride themselves on how thin they can get the dough in this process, which yields more cookies.  I'm not one of them.  I did it about like this.

Make a little ball of dough, flatten it out with your palm, make an indentation in the center for cherry and pinch the dough around it.

 Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake 13-15 minutes.

Cool and dip in icing.  I sprinkled mine with colored sugar because I'm a big old kid and I like colored sugar....and anything that I might even imagine to be sugarplums!

No wonder Hans Christian Andersen came up with such wonderful fairy tales.  His mother probably did wear an apron and make these for him while his Grandpa told him stories. 
These make an awesome addition to your Christmas cookie trays, but they're pretty yummy anytime.
Do you have a recipe from your heritage that you like to make?  If you do, write up a post about it and come back to the Inspiration Cafe and link it up at our first-ever linky party which will start on April 29th.  I think it will be a blast to see some traditional recipes from the blog world!  
Next week, the fabulous Mel will be posting a recipe from the "Land Down Under" and you won't want to miss that!  

Linking up to any or all of these fine parties: