Like many families, in my house the days leading up to Christmas are always filled with baking cookies.  Growing up my favorite was my mom’s specialty – Rainbow Cookies.  Since she passed away almost five years ago I’ve kept the tradition alive and made them each year.  Over the years I’ve tried different recipes and this is my favorite – it is adapted from a recipe found on saveur.com.  This year I wanted to share it with all of you.  It is a little bit time consuming, but totally worth it!  Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS

1½ cups unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pans

2 cups flour, plus more for pans

1 cup sugar

1 (12.5-oz.) can almond pastry filling, such as Solo brand

4 eggs

12 drops green food coloring

12 drops red food coloring

1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam

1/4 cup apricot jam

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Heat oven to 350°. Grease and flour three 9″ x 13″ baking pans and line with parchment paper; set aside. Using a mixer on high speed, beat butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add pastry filling; beat until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour; beat until just combined. Evenly divide batter into 3 bowls. Add green food coloring to one bowl, red food coloring to the second bowl, and leave the third bowl plain; stir colorings into batters. Using an offset spatula, spread each batter into a prepared baking pan. Bake each pan until just beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto wire racks; cool.

2. Place green layer onto a piece of plastic wrap large enough to wrap all three layers. Spread green layer with raspberry jam, and top with uncolored layer. Spread with apricot jam, and top with pink layer. Transfer layers to a baking sheet, and enclose with plastic wrap. Place a heavy pan or cutting board on top of wrapped layers to compress. Chill in the refrigerator 8 hours, or overnight.

3. Remove plastic wrap. Top with melted chocolate chips, and refrigerate 1 hour, or until chocolate is firm. Using a slicing knife, trim cake edges to form an even block. Slice block crosswise into 1 ½″-wide logs. Slice each log crosswise into ½″-thick squares to serve.