Filled Cookies with mincemeat

3 cups sifted all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling – mincemeat or the home made filling below

1/2 cup chopped raisins
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Set Aside.

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, about three minutes,
Beat the egg lightly and combine with the milk and vanilla. Add to the butter mixture alternating with the flour mixture and ending with the flour. Beat well after each addition. This will be a fairly sticky dough. Form into a ball, wrap in cling wrap, and put in the freezer for about an hour.
Meanwhile make the filling. Combine all off the ingredients except for the vanilla and heat until thickened. Off the heat, stir in the  vanilla and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Divide the dough in half and return the first half to the refrigerator while you work with the other half.
Place dough on a well floured surface and dust with flour. Turn the dough over and make sure there is flour underneath. Roll out thin and cut into 3-inch circles with a floured cutter. As you place a circle on an ungreased cookie sheet, put a generous tablespoon of filling in the center and cover with anther circle of dough, pressing edges together slightly with a fork tine to seal the edges. Continue until all the dough and filling are used. Combine the scraps of dough and rout out to make the last cookies.

Bake about 15 minutes, or until the dough begins to brown slightly.

Makes approximately 18 large cookies.
Note : This recipe is a real favorite so I often extend the number of cookies by just using a single circle with less filling, folding over to seal the same way to make half circle.  Still make some with the double and more filling amount. This way I get twice the amount of cookies but it has less filling in each cookies. The thickness of the rolled out dough will determine how many cookies is possible in a single batch.

Recipe: now a family tradition.
Source book: page 130 of Lee Baily’s COUNTY DESSERTS  with full page picture on page 129 Book was a Christmas present from Mike to Serena 1990. Cookies are the closestto what Grandma McP made using homemade mincemeat.