Italian Rainbow Cookies

For @bucketlistbakeclub’s December prompt, I made Italian Rainbow Cookies for the first time.

I wanted to do a fun spin on them and while killing time at the airport at the start of the month I sketched an idea to turn the layers into 3 iconic Christmas characters:

1. The Grinch

2. Charlie Brown

3. Buddy the Elf

The cookies themselves followed the classic almond cake recipe but instead of raspberry jam I used some homemade pineapple jam I had made recently. This doubled as a way to use up leftover jam and also ensured I wasn’t adding extra colour to the already thin layers.

This one required a lot of math and a lot of patience. While I’d consider making this cookie again in the future I’m definitely not going to make this many layers again.

Recipes

• Italian rainbow cookies - https://www.tastingtable.com/686065/italian-rainbow-cookie-recipe/

• Almond paste - https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/diy-almond-paste-recipe

Inspiration & Technique

1. I mapped out each layer and assumed a total of 24 ‘portions’ of batter for each cookie design and calculated the ratio of batter for each layer.

2. Then I made the batter and divided them proportionally and dyed each portion with food colouring.

3. Then split each of those colours down further to represent each layer.

4. Then after baking and cooling each layer, stacked them as per the recipe instructions.