Sharing our traditional homestyle dessert recipe for making tasty rum-filled breskvice, also known as Croatian peach cookies that have lovingly been enjoyed for generations.

Making Croatian Peach Cookies

You’d be hard pressed to find a Croatian gathering (such as a wedding, reunion or shower of some sort) where these tasty rum-filled breskvice were not being served. They are a classic Croatian dessert recipe that are utterly delicious and memorable in appearance. With a sweet, soft jam filling sandwiched between two equally round shaped hard cookies and dipped in red and yellow food dye, there are few desserts that look and taste quite like this.

One Croatian peach cookie eplit in half to show the rum-filled jam center

Especially popular at Croatian weddings, they are traditionally styled with boxwood leaves. For many, these famous cookies are and will forever be known as “peach bums”; which I’ll spare you the explanation! Requiring quite a few steps to prepare and assemble, these unique Croatian breskvice cookies are a labor of love to make.

woman's hand grabbing one Croatian peach cookie from a platter

Breskvice Recept: Croatian Peach Cookies

Jane and Sonja

A traditional Croatian dessert recipe for making tasty rum-filled breskvice, also known as peach cookies.

5 from 12 votes

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Prep Time 2 30

Cook Time 10

Course Dessert

Cuisine Croatian

Equipment

KitchenAid Stand Mixer

Ingredients

2 eggs
½ cup granulated sugar
1 packet vanilla sugar
¾ cup vegetable oil
½ cup milk
3.5 cups flour
½ tsp baking powder

Filling

4-5 tbsp Apricot Jam
1 tsp Rum Extract
1 tbsp Cocoa powder
1 tsp soft butter as needed

Coloring

red and yellow food dye
1 cup water divided
1 packet vanilla sugar divided

Instructions

Preparing the Dough

Mix eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla sugar in a large bowl using a KitchenAid mixer.
Add milk and continue mixing.
Combine flour and baking powder in a separate bowl and then slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.
Form dough into a long log shape and wrap dough tightly with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 1 hour.
Remove from frigde and then break dough into smaller pieces and roll into a ball, about 1” size.
Place balls on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 360F for 10-12 minutes. The balls will still appear light in color.
Cool the baked cookie balls just enough that you can handle them.
While warm, use a knife to scoop out the centers of each ball. Put the scooped out cookie aside for making the filling.

Filling

Add 4-5 tbsp of apricot jam, 1 tsp rum, 1 tbsp cocoa powder and scooped out cookie centers in a bowl and mix all together.
Sandwich the filling in between two round cookies. Press two circles together.
If they are not sticking, add soft butter to the filling mixture to help hold the two sides together.

Adding the Coloring

Boil ½ cup water and add red food dye, add vanilla sugar.
Boil ½ cup water and add yellow food dye, add vanilla sugar.
Brush on red dye on one side and yellow dye on the other.

Finishing with a Sugar Coating

Mix equal parts granulated sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl and while cookies are still damp, dip them into sugar mixture. Make just enough sugar mixture to coat all the cookies.

Keyword cookies, dessert, peaches

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platter of breskvice placed on a crochet doily

More Traditional Croatian Dessert Recipes:

We may be a little biased but we believe that Croatian baked goods are the absolute best kind of baked goods. Traditionally they are not overly sweet and sugary but loaded with flavor and decadence. If you want to try making some more classic Croatian dessert recipes, check out these tasty options:

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