X-Cookies/ Sicilian Cucidati

Yesterday it was so hectic. Apart from doing all the house works, I prepared two elaborate recipes which needed so much of preparations. I will talk about the other recipe later. Coming to this X Cookies, it is a Sicilian cookie, also known as Cucidati. It has a cookie dough and a tangy sweet filling made of dried figs. I bought all the ingredients but kept on postponing until the last day. Nowadays I am procrastinating a lot. Need to change that. The cookie dough is so buttery and is prepared like a pie crust with cold butter so that the cookie turns out buttery and flaky. The filling has figs and apart from that it has lots of candied orange peel, chocolate, apricots and raisins. As I didn't have orange peel and raisins I added lots of apricots instead of the other two. The filling itself was very tasty and beware, you could finish it off before you roll out the cookie. So keep it away from kiddos until you finish baking. They turned out so delicious, though the shaping was quite a job. I am posting this for the alphabet X for Blogging Marathon #32.

Recipe Source: Nick Malgieri
Makes 2 Dozen Cookies
Ingredients:
For The Filling:
Dried Figs-1 cup
Raisins-1/4 cup
Candied Orange Peel-1/6 cup
Dark Chocolate-45 gm
Almonds-1/6 cup
Apricots-1/6 cup
Instant Coffee Powder-1/2 tsp
Cinnamon-1/4 tsp

For The Pasta Frolla:
Flour/ Maida-2 cups
Sugar-1/3 cup
Baking Powder-1/2 tsp
Salt-1/2 tsp
Cold Butter-1/2 cup
Curd/ Yogurt-1/2 cup

Procedure:
For The Pasta Frolla:
1. In a food processor add flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and butter.
2. Run the processor until the flour resembles bread crumbs.
3. Add curd and run until a crumbly dough is formed.
4. Transfer to a cling wrap, cover it tightly and refrigerate.

For The Filling:
1. Boil 1 cup of water and add figs.
2. Boil for 2-3 minutes until the figs are soft.
3. Drain water and allow it to cool.
4. In the same jar in which you made the pasta frolla, add all the ingredients for filling.
5. Run the processor until the filling forms a ball.
6. Remove from the jar, divide it into 6 equal portions and keep it covered.

Making The X-Cookies:
1. Remove dough from fridge.
2. Divide it into 6 equal portions.
3. Dust counter with flour.
4. Roll a single portion into a 6" log.
5. Roll it into a rectangle of 2 1/2" * 9".
6. Now roll one portion of the filling into a 9" log.
7. Place it in the rectangle.
8. Bring the sides of the dough and cover the filling.
9. Now holding the log tightly, roll it into 12" log.
10. Divide into 4 equal portions.
11. Now make a slit mark on both sides of the smaller log leaving 1 1/2 cm intact.
12. Curve the slit edges on both sides to form the letter X.
13. Arrange on a greased baking tray.
14. Preheat oven to 180C.
15. Bake the cookies for 25-30 minutes or until golden.
16. Cool on wire rack.
17. Store in air tight jar and serve along with coffee.