I’m trapped at home without a car, so here’s another cookie for you. This is an old Southern recipe for Ribbon Cookies. Unlike some ribbon cookie recipes, these spread a little. Their texture is more sugar cookie-ish than shortbread-ish. I made these with ingredients I had around the house…..like the cherries leftover from the Sundae Cookies.
Ribbon Cookies
1 cup butter (8 ounces), softened
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
¼ teaspoon almond extract
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ cup chopped maraschino cherries
¼ to ½ cup chopped pecans
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, melted
Line inside of a 9x5 inch loaf pan with foil.
Cream butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add egg and flavorings.
Stir together flour, salt and baking powder, then add to butter mixture and stir until well combined. Divide dough into three parts and place each part in a separate bowl.
Add chopped cherries to one part, chopped nuts to second part and melted chocolate to last part so that you have 3 different types dough.
Pat cherry dough into bottom of pan. Pat chocolate dough over cherry dough. Pat nut dough over chocolate dough. Cover pan and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight. This is important. If you don’t chill it, the dough doesn’t slice neatly.
To assemble, lift from pan, remove foil and slice the “loaf” of stacked dough lengthwise into thirds or, for larger cookies, halves (I like to trim the edges, then slice lengthwise into two halves). Slice each segment cross-wise into ¼ inch thick cookies. Lay on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees F.
The yield is different, depending on how big you make the cookies and how much you trim, but you should get at least 60 cookies
julie says
Hi Anna,
I was about to bake the ribbon cookies and realized there was no oven temp (unless I am losing my mind and I just do not see it). Could you e-mail me the oven temp? [email protected]
Thanks!
Amy in Alaska says
It still looks so green, even a day later! Maybe a combo of the nuts making it a bit darker and the lighting? Or maybe the fact that I THOUGHT the cookies were going to use pistachios and green food coloring, like my recipe, is just making my eyes see green.
Anna says
Amy, it doesn't look green to me.
Of course now I'm loving the idea of making it green.
Anna says
Hi TG,
These are from Southern Living. But you know, Betty Crocker must really like spumoni because the Betty Crocker Cookie Cookbook has an entirely different "spumoni" recipe called "Spuponi Bars". They're made with condensed milk.
Growing up in Texas, spumoni always seemed crazy-exotic. The only exposure I had to it was at Baskin Robbins. It was the "pretty but yucky" ice cream".
TG says
oh one other minor difference, the spumoni cookie recipe has 1/2 cup of sugar. otherwise, identical! ha. sorry about making two comments. tra la la
TG says
ha, "southern recipe"? these sure do look just like (and have a nearly identical ingredient list to) the "Spumoni cookies" from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook... i know this only because i have an obsession with all things spumoni (very northeast) and have made them. the only difference seems to be the substitution of pecans for pistachios. but i would be amused to hear the "southern" source