Trogirski Rafioli - A Romantic Croatian Cookie
An abundance of recipes for Trogirski Rafioli are out and about in Croatia.
Each household claiming that they have the original and perfect recipe!
This isn’t a sweet cookie, in fact the amount of sugar in them is negligible. Not savoury either , just a lovely little bite to offer guests when they come to visit.
A little bit of cookie context
Situated on the Adriatic coast, Trogi is a town with a lot of history, and a lot of stories, like this one!
The story goes like this;
Once upon a time, in the lovely town of Trogira, lived the beautiful lady Rafioli.
A wicked man imprisoned the beautiful lady Rafioli in the Trogira tower and left her there alone.
While she waited to be set free, the lady Rafioli began to bake small treats.
The Trogirski Rafioli was born.
In case you’re interested, she was rescued by a nobleman who rode away with her.
From that day on, she baked just for him.
How romantic!
You don’t need to be in a tower to make these, they are so easy to make, once you’ve done it, you’ll be able to tweak the recipe to add your own flavours and nut combinations to make it suit your own tastebuds.
I used ground almonds in these, but they are so great with roasted ground walnuts or hazelnuts too, and if you don’t like rose water replace it with something else.
The rosewater in this recipe isn’t overwhelming and just leaves a little floral note on the tongue, but be aware, it’s very easy to add more than is good so keep a watchful eye on the amount.
Go on, give it a go and enjoy your sweet life!
Light pastry surrounding soft nut filing
What You Need
Pastry
500g Plain Flour – Extra for rolling
6 Egg Yolks
50g Castor Sugar
100g Butter – Softened and cut up - See Tip Box
2tsp Vanilla Extract
3 Tbsp Rum
50ml Milk
50ml Vegetable Oil
Fill, fold & seal
Filling
500g Ground Almonds – See Tip Box
6 Egg Whites
100g Butter
2tsp Vanilla Extract
1tsp Rose Water
1 Lemon – Zest and Juice
1 Orange – Zest and Juice
Dusting
Icing Sugar
How It’s Done
Pastry
Place the flour, castor sugar, vanilla, rum, milk, oil and egg yolks into an electric mixer and beat to combine
While the mixer is running on a slow speed, add the pieces of softened butter and run until the dough comes together.
Remove the dough from the mixer and using your hands, bring it together into a ball.
Wrap the pastry in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
A light not sweet cookie
Filling
Cover oven trays with non-stick baking parchment
Set the oven at 180c
Using a whisk attachment or hand whisk, beat the egg whites until they increase in size and form soft peaks.
Place the rest of the filling ingredients into a bowl and begin to fold the beaten egg whites into the nut mixture until everything is mixed in.
Set the mixture aside until needed
Throw a little flour onto a clean work surface and rollout the pastry to about the thickness of a £1 coin – See Tip Box
Once the pastry has been rolled out, use a round cutter – (8cm) to cut out circles – See Tip Box
Place some of the filling into the centre of the cut-out pastry.
Bring one side of the pastry over to form a half circle and press together to seal
Use a fork to mark and seal the edges of each cookie.
Place them all on to a prepared tray and place into the heated oven to bake for 20 minutes until the cookies are a very pale colour.
Let the cookies cool completely before dusting with icing sugar to serve.
Tip Box
Nuts – 1) I used almonds, but as mentioned, every family has their own recipe, so use the nuts you prefer.
2) Before blitzing the nuts, bake them in the oven for a few minutes to enhance the flavour.
Pastry – 1) This is a soft pastry, so it may help to cut the pastry up into smaller pieces to rollout. If that’s what happens, place the rest back in the fridge until ready to use.
2) Cutting out – A good size for these cookies is 8cm. Roll up the excess pastry, roll out again and cut out.
Lots of icing sugar to serve.
