Recipe of A Week: Sage's Delicious Czech Treats

Cedar City, Utah, a quaint main street town in southern Utah,  population 28,667 (as of July 2008), tends to not be on too many people's radar. And that's the charm of it. A quaint and quiet community where peaceful living can happen, and which may perhaps be best known for it's annual Shakespearean Festival, and Rehkop's Barber Shop - home of the best damn hand shave outside of Turkey.

Well, this community was recently rocked by an event of epic proportions.
Students at a local school prepared their country reports. Among the various tasks at hand for the students to impart knowledge of their selected countries was to prepare a food treat indigenous to that land. Well, one of those aforementioned 28,667 people, who we'll call "Sage", selected the Czech Republic. And her food treat, a popular Czech sweet, or "cukrovi", left the town changed forever. Echoes of its deliciousness rang from north to south, and its mark on the town's sweet tooth will be forever felt.

Below, you will find the recipe for this particular treat, as prepared by yours truly in my kitchen, just days after news of this momentous event crossed the U.S. and the Atlantic, and all the way back to the Czech Republic itself.

In Czech, 'cukrovi' itself is merely a term for 'sweets', and 'susenky' are cookies or biscuits. This particular recipe is a bit of a "cobbler cookie".

You'll need: 

- 1 cup (240ml) butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 2 cups (480ml) flour
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- homemade almond paste (recipe below)
- homemade strawberry preserves (recipe below)
- powdered sugar for dusting

Prepare the dough:

In a large bowl, cream together the softened butter and the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks and mix in evenly. Then, add the flour and the walnuts, and mix until well incorporated.

At this point, divide your dough in half, and put half of it in the freezer. With the other half, coat the bottom of a medium sized rectangular glass baking dish, and pat it down until smooth and even.

Now, the original recipe called for a container of almond paste and a jar of strawberry preserves, but I wanted to make a variation here. I decided to make my own paste and preserves.


To make the strawberry preserves:
I decided to make my own preserves because, well, fresh is always better than from a jar. Plus, it's summer and, as such, the strawberries are fresh and sweet in season right now. I took one small container of fresh strawberries, sliced 'em and diced 'em, and mashed 'em up with a potato masher. Then, I added one tablespoon of powdered sugar, and one tablespoon of corn starch (to thicken it up) and whisked it all together over low heat in a saucepan. Within 8-10 minutes, you have thick, warm, and fresh strawberry preserves.  Set aside to cool down for just a few minutes whilst preparing the almond paste.


To make the almond paste: 

In a blender, place 2 cups of blanched almonds and blend into small bits. Add 1 and 1/2 packages of soft cream cheese, 1 tsp of almond extract, and about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar. Mix thoroughly until creamy and well-blended. Spread the mixture evenly over the dough in your baking dish.

Pour the strawberry preserves on top of the almond paste, and also spread evenly. Now you have the perfect base and it's time to cover it with the remaining dough from the freezer.

The reason why we wanted to freeze the dough was so that it was solid enough when we grate it with a cheese grater over the top of the mixture. This is going to create a light, crumbly, buttery deliciousness the likes of which you've never tasted before!

And now you can place it in a preheated oven (325F/150C), and bake until golden brown, about 45mins-1hour.

Slice into squares, and let it cool in the pan.

I understand that this treat was so delicious to the townsfolk of Cedar City that they are planning to place a pan of these treats in the top of the landlocked lighthouse which greets visitors entering the city - a beacon of hope and tastiness. Let's hope that is really the case.

And, by the way, Danger's father built the amazing wooden door on that crazy landlocked lighthouse!

Recipe courtesy of "Sage", and photo of lighthouse is copyright John Schwab.