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Oreshki recipe
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Oreshki (Walnut shaped cookies)

The oreshki are an unusual hit on any coffee table, both in terms of taste and appearance. They consist of a delicate shortcrust pastry and a creamy pudding butter filling. The walnut shaped cookies are ideal for Easter, Christmas, birthdays or as a gift. With a little hard work, you can easily make them at home with this recipe.
Course Dessert
Cuisine Russian, Soviet
Prep Time 35 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 45 minutes
Cooling time 2 hours 30 minutes
Servings 70 cookies

Equipment

  • Oreshnitsa or walnut shaped cookie molds

Ingredients

for the dough

  • 180 g butter
  • 140 g sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • approx. 400 g flour
  • 6 g baking powder
  • 1 pinch of ground vanilla bean
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • possibly butter to grease the oreshnitsa

for the filling

  • 600 ml milk
  • 125 g butter room warm
  • 150 g sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 60 g flour
  • 1 pinch of ground vanilla bean

Instructions

Preparation of the dough

  • Melt butter and leave to cool slightly.
  • Beat eggs, sugar and salt until light and fluffy.
  • Add vanilla and the melted butter and mix briefly.
  • Mix flour with baking powder.
  • Add the flour mixture in portions to the egg sugar mixture and knead briefly and quickly to form a very soft dough.
  • Chill the dough in an airtight container for 30 minutes.

Preparation of the filling

  • Mix eggs, sugar and flour thoroughly in a thick-bottomed saucepan to form a homogeneous mixture without lumps.
  • Pour in milk and stir again to form a homogeneous mixture.
  • Place the saucepan on the stove and bring the milk mixture to a boil, stirring constantly, until it thickens like a pudding. Continue to cook the pudding for approx. 1 - 2 minutes while stirring and remove from the heat.
  • Immediately add softened butter cut into pieces and vanilla to the hot pudding and stir until the butter has melted.
  • Leave the cream to cool, stirring occasionally.

Preparation of the oreshki

  • Shape the dough into very small balls (approx. 4 - 6 g each, depending on your baking tin).
  • If you don't have an electric oreshki maker, but one that is used on the stove, you will need to grease it with butter and heat it up beforehand. Read more about this in the article above. Follow the instructions for your electric oreshki maker.
  • Gradually bake all the dough balls in the oreshki maker until golden yellow to golden brown and leave the nut halves to cool.
  • If necessary, carefully remove the excess edge from each nut half with a sharp knife.
  • Using a piping bag or a teaspoon, fill each nut half not too full with the cream and stick two nut halves together.
  • Chill the oreshki for approx. 2 hours.

Notes

  • The amount of flour for the dough specified may vary. Only add as much flour to the liquid mixture in portions until you have a very soft shortcrust dough.
  • Do not knead the dough for too long, but only briefly until the consistency is just homogeneous enough so that the Russian walnut cookies taste crumbly and not tough.
  • You can find more ideas for oreschki fillings in the article above.
  • The excess dough that you have cut off the nut halves can be finely crumbled and mixed with the filling.
  • See the detailed tips and tricks for making the oreshki at the top of the article.