Italian Peach Cookies

4.34 from 9 votes

These Italian Peach Cookies are a work of art! Delicious soft cookies filled with a chocolate walnut filling, dipped in milk with food coloring to look like real peaches, then finally rolled through sugar! A beautiful little dessert perfect for any special occasion!

Prep Time1

Cook Time15

Total Time1 15

Course: Cookies, Dessert

Cuisine: Italian

Servings:

Calories: 420kcal

Author: Joanna Cismaru

Ingredients

Cookies

½ cup butter softened
⅔ cup sugar
2 large eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup milk
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

Filling

1 cup walnuts ground
½ cup powdered sugar same as icing sugar or confectioners sugar
½ cup butter softened
½ cup peach preserves or jam
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
⅓ cup cocoa powder

Decorations

⅔ cup milk
⅔ cup milk
1 cup sugar
red and yellow food coloring
mint leaves

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Cookies

Prep the oven: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Make cookie dough: To a large bowl or the bowl of your mixer, add the butter, sugar and mix until light and creamy. Add the eggs, salt, vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Add the milk, flour and baking powder to the bowl and mix until incorporated.
Form into cookies: Use a small cookie scoop to scoop out equal amounts of dough, then roll into balls, you should get 32 balls. Place the cookie balls on the prepared baking sheets.
Bake: Transfer the baking sheets to the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the bottom of the cookies are golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for a couple minutes then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
Scoop out middle of cookies: Once the cookies have cooled, use a teaspoon to scoop out some of the middle of the cookies from the flat bottom. Crumble up the scooped out part of the cookie using a fork or a food processor.

Filling and Decorations

Make filling: Add all the filling ingredients together plus the scooped out cookie crumbs in a medium size bowl and mix until well combined.
Prep milk and sugar: Pour ⅔ of the milk in a small bowl and mix it with red food coloring. Pour the other ⅔ of the milk in another small bowl and mix it well with the yellow food coloring. Place the cup of sugar in a shallow plate.

Assembly

Fill cookies: Fill out the hole of each cookie with the filling mixture and spread some of it over the bottom of the cookie. Press one filled cookie over another filled cookie, to sandwich them together. Repeat with all the cookies.
Color cookies: Dip half of a sandwich cookie in the red colored milk and the other half in the yellow colored milk. Roll the cookie through sugar. Repeat with remaining cookies.
Finish cookies with mint leaves: Insert 1 or 2 mint leaves into the side of each cookie, if preferred.
Chill before serving: Refrigerate in an airtight container for a couple hours before serving.

Notes

The cookie dough should be soft and slightly sticky. If too dry, add a bit more milk.
If you don't have a cookie scoop to form the cookies, use a spoon to grab equal amount of cookie dough and roll them between your fingers until round.
Don't over bake the cookies, they will continue to bake a bit longer as they are cooling on the baking sheet.
If you don't want to use food coloring use alcohol instead like Alkermes, Peach Schnapps, Campari or Red Vermouth to dip the cookies in. Place them on a cooling rack, allowing them to soak the liqueur before rolling them through sugar.
Store these cookies in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
These Italian peach cookies are perfect for freezing as well. Place them in a single layer in an airtight container and freeze for up to a month. You can also flash freeze them first by placing them in a single layer on a baking sheet in the freezer for a couple hours until frozen. Transfer them to a freezer bag or an airtight container and freeze for up to a month.
Defrost at room temperature about an hour before serving.

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