Celebrations call for a peach of a cookie.

Byline: Home Cooking by Jim Boyd The Register-Guard

DENISE GUDGER, a curriculum coordinator for the Eugene School District, offers a recipe today for a cookie she makes to celebrate special occasions.

"They are called the Peaches and Cream cookie," Gudger said. "They actually look like a fuzzy peach."

The cookies are baked, scooped out, made into a sandwich filled with a mixture of whipped topping and pudding, dipped in vermouth tinted with red food color, rolled in sugar, garnished with an artificial leaf or piece of green cherry, and then frozen until used. They are served at room temperature.

The recipe is from Gudger's Aunt Ellie and was published in a cookbook from the Symphony League of Jackson, Miss.

Specialty: "Probably Italian cooking," she said. "I grew up in an Italian family and probably our family's spaghetti sauce and meatballs and lasagna recipes are a favorite with lots of our friends and extended family."

How she began cooking: "My mom taught me to cook," Gudger said. "When I was just in early grade school, I began with learning to bake. I loved baking pies. I can remember in early middle school, she had me learn to go to the grocery with her and do the grocery shopping, and actually prepare a whole meal for the family.

"My aunts and uncles were all good cooks in the Italian side of the family. So we'd have lots of family gatherings with lots of cooking and preparing food together.

"My mom was born in Italy, and this summer I had an opportunity to go to Calabria and visit the village where she was born, and visit her cousins and actually observe a little of the DeLeonardis' (her mother's family) home cooking firsthand."

Her biggest cooking success: "I think, really, it's just perfecting the family recipes and preparing those," she said, mentioning family recipes for spaghetti, lasagna and ravioli and a family specialty called Eggplant Pie.

Her biggest cooking failure: "One time I had a dinner party and I made meringues that were filled with whipped cream and fresh berries," she said. "However, my problem was I cooked the meringues too long and they were as hard as a rock. So when the first guest dug into the meringue, it ricocheted right off the plate, all the way across the table. ... It just went like a Frisbee across the table. After that, it was pretty funny, we just ate the whipped cream and the berries."

Her favorite cookbooks: "My favorite cookbook is quite old. It's the 'Southern Living Party Cookbook' (by Celia Marks and the editors of Southern Living Magazine, copyright 1972). I've cooked from this for years for entertaining - a lot of dinner party ideas. ... And then a more recent cookbook is 'Caprial Cooks for Friends' by Caprial Pence."

Why this recipe was chosen: "I chose this recipe because it brings back memories of lots of happy events in our family over the years, because it's a cookie we make for all types of family celebrations."

Ellie's Peaches and Cream

Cookies:

4 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup oil

4 cups flour

3 teaspoon baking powder

Beat together ingredients; chill about 2 hours or overnight. Roll dough into 1-inch balls; bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 325 degrees for about 20 minutes, 10 minutes on top rack and 10 minutes on lower rack. Cookies should not be browned. Cool.

Filling:

2 1/4 cups milk, divided

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 package (1.4 ounce) whipped topping mix

1 package (3 3/4 ounce) vanilla instant pudding

Combine 1/2 cup milk and vanilla with whipped topping mix; whip. Blend 1 3/4 cups milk with pudding; fold into topping mixture and refrigerate.

To assemble:

1 1/2 cups dry vermouth 

Few drops red food color

3/4 cup sugar

Artificial leaves or green cherries

Handling very gently and using a small sharp knife, scoop out inside of a cookie from the bottom, leaving 1/4- to 1/3-inch shell. Remove from the refrigerator a portion of filling sufficient to fill 5 or 6 "peaches" at a time. Place filling inside 2 cookies, slightly overfilling. Place cookies together to form a "peach"; remove excess filling.

Mix a small amount of red food color with vermouth to make pale pink color. Dip "peach" very quickly into vermouth. Drain on a rack for a few minutes; roll in sugar. Immediately place artificial leaf or small piece of green cherry on each cookie.

Store in individual, paper muffin cups in an air-tight container in the freezer until just before serving. If necessary, sprinkle with a little sugar. Recipe should not be doubled.

Makes 25 "peaches."

To nominate a cook for this feature, mail it to: Home Cooking, P.O. Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440; fax it to 338-2813; contact Jim Boyd at 338-2363, or [phone]; or e-mail it to [e-mail]. Include the nominee's name and phone number, your name and phone number, and why you think he or she is an interesting cook.