Six ingredients is all it takes to make this traditional Croatian cookie recipe, known as školjkice; deliciously jam filled and coated with powdered sugar.
Skoljkice: Traditional Croatian Cookie Recipe
In English, školjkice translates to shells which has a lot to do with their full half circle shape and gently imprinted edges. Each cookie is filled with a 1/2 teaspoon of thick jam, such as a sweet plum or quince jam. Alternatively, you could also use a chocolate spread, such as Nutella for the tasty centers.
Unlike most of the other traditional Croatian desserts, these školjkice cookies with only a few ingredients is considered a quick and easy type of recipe. If you don’t have a round cookie cutter, you can use the rim of a glass to make the circle shapes in the dough. But keep in mind a circular cutter with a diameter of 3″ works the best for these cookies.
Traditional Croatian Skoljkice Shell Cookies
Equipment
- Stand Mixer such as KitchenAid or hand mixer
- Saucepan
- Fork
- Rolling Pin
Ingredients
- 5.5 cups all purpose flour unbleached
- 2 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
- 1.5 cups vegetable oil or canola oil
- 1 cups water
- thick sweet jam for the filling plum jam or quince jam
Topping
- 3/4 cup icing sugar
- 2 tbsp vanilla sugar
Instructions
- Place oil and water in a small saucepan and bring to boil over medium heat.
- As soon as the mixture comes to a boil, put it aside to cool for 10 minutes in a different bowl.
- Preheat over to 360F.
- Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, combine flour and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.
- Slowly pour the water and oil mixture to the flour mixture.
- Mix all the ingredients together until well combined.
- Remove the dough from the bowl and knead by hand for 1-2 minutes. If the dough feels too soft, add a bit more flour.
- Divide the dough in to two balls and work one half of the dough at a time.
- Sprinkle flour over a clean work surface and using a rolling pin, roll out the dough until it is thin (about 5mm high) and even. Typically the thinner the dough the better for this type of cookie.
- Using the rim of a glass to cut circle shapes into the dough. Dip the rim in flour to prevent the dough from sticking.
- Add ½ tsp of jam to the middle of each circle.
- Fold one side over to make a ½ circle shape.
- Use a fork and gently presss along the sides to seal the edges leaving light indents around the half circle.
- Move the cookies on to a parchment lined baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and after 5 minutes transfer them to a cooling rack.
- Combine a small bowl full of icing and vanilla sugar.
- While skoljkice cookies are still warm, dip them into the sugar mixture to coat and put aside to cool completely.
Nutrition
More Traditional Croatian Dessert Recipes:
For more classic Croatian dessert recipes, check out these tasty options:
- Croatian kiflice
- Homemade pie crust recipe
- Best-ever Carrot Cake recipe
- Easy zucchini cake with currants recipe
- Chocolate and coconut coated mini cakes recipe
Chocolate & Coconut Heart Cakes 
Homemade pie crust 
Zucchini Cake with Berries 
Moist Carrot Cake 
Jam Filled Crescent Cookies
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Janie
Tuesday 19th of December 2023
I ladies! Thank you so much for this recipe. My father was all Croatian and I'm always looking for recipes from my ancestry. I gave it 5 star but quite honestly, I'm not sure if I did something wrong. I used 5-1/5 cups of flour and I ended up with over 3 dozen cookies and some were thick and I did try to roll the dough out thin like you suggested. I was like elastic and smooth and did roll easy though. Not hard to work with. Problem is the cookies taste like dough. What did I do wrong? Thanks again for this!
Whitney M
Sunday 31st of January 2021
Oh these are perfect!!! I used coconut oil instead of vegetable but no other changes. I used blueberry jam for half and strawberry for the other. The dough was a different consistency that I was used to, but I love that these weren't overly sweet. The texture was quite similar to shortbread. I can't wait to share with others!
Jane and Sonja
Sunday 31st of January 2021
Those sound amazing Whitney. We'll have to try with coconut oil too. Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Have a great day. Jane