Holiday Baking- Linzer Cookies

Two Down, many, many to go . . .

I have never made Linzer Cookies before, and after changing my mind and NOT making them for our cookie exchange I had to conquer them!  And conquer I did.  They are delicate, multistep, time consuming cookies, but they are beautiful!   I just made them sound really hard . . . they’re not at all.  Sorry cookies 🙁

First step . . . roast almonds and make the almond paste-like mixture . . . 1 cup of roasted almonds, 1/4 cup of sugar.

Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar.

Add zest from one lemon.  I used my new Pampered Chef lemon zester, and wholly crow, it’s the best tool ever!  FULL length zests.

Add in almond mixture and flour, cinnamon and salt.  Beat until just mixed.

Form into two rectangle 1/2 pieces and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Next steps are to roll out the dough . . . which was slightly crumbly, so next time I might add a 1/4 cup more butter . . . and cut out bottoms and tops.

Bottoms

Bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes.

Tops

Sprinkle with icing sugar to coat tops.

Use about 1/2 tsp of seedless raspberry jam and or lemon spread to make the inner filling for the cookies.  I used a small spoon to spread the jam on and filled in extra after I had the top on.  Be careful not to touch the icing sugar on the tops!

Recipe:

Linzer Cookies

1 c roasted almonds
2 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 c  butter, softened
2/3 c sugar, divided
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 egg yolks
Zest of 1 lemon
Icing sugar for dusting
1/2 cup (118 ml) seedless Raspberry Jam (I also used Lemon Spread)

Preheat the oven to 350F (175C). Toast the almonds on a baking sheet for about 8-10 minutes (or until lightly browned and fragrant). Once the nuts have cooled, place in a food processor and process with 1/4 cup of the sugar from the recipe until finely ground. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk or sift together the flour, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream the butter and remaining sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract, egg yolks, and lemon zest. Beat in the ground nuts. Add the flour mixture beating just until incorporated. Divide the dough in half and shape into two rectangles about 1/2 inch thick. Wrap the two rectangles of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm (at least one hour and up to several days).

Preheat oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Remove one rectangle of dough from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Using a 2 to 3 inch cookie cutter cut out the dough. Place the cookies about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet. Use a smaller cookie cutter to cut out the centers of half of the cookies on the baking sheet. (You will be sandwiching two cookies together and there will be a small ‘window or cut out’ in the top cookie so you can see the jam underneath.)

Reroll any scraps and cut out the cookies. Remove the other half of the dough from the refrigerator and roll and cut out the rest of the cookies. Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes or until they are very lightly browned. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Assembly:
Place the cookies with the cut-outs on a wire rack and lightly dust the tops with the confectioners’ sugar.

On the bottom surface of the full cookie (top of cookie will face out) spread with about a 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon of jam. Place the cut-out cookie on top and gently sandwich them together, making sure not to smug the confectioners’ sugar. Using a small spoon, fill the cut-out with a little more jam.