Linzer Cookies

I was supposed to join two friends for a cookie baking party before Christmas but the weather in Vancouver, though beautiful and white, ruined our plans. The roads were just too slippery and the snow too heavy to travel. I was planning on making traditional German linzer cookies with them and I had pre-made the dough, since it needs to chill for 2 hours. I ended up having a solo baking party and made these sandwich biscuits alongside mince pies and butter tarts (recipe to follow). Linzer cookies are crisp with a cinnamon and almond flavour. I filled some with apricot preserve (a nice, tart contrast to the sweet biscuit), some with Nutella, and also made a few simple cutouts with almonds. The recipe I used comes from Country Cleaver. Delicious!

Makes around 40 cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2/3 cup ground almonds
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Filling:
Apricot preserve (or another jam)
Nutella

Almonds flakes for the plain cutouts
Powdered sugar for dusting

Instructions:

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, ground almonds, and cinnamon. In a large bowl, beat together softened butter and sugar until smooth, light, and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla until completely incorporated.

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet and make a dough (The website I got this recipe from skipped this step and went right to dividing dough, so I am assuming this is what I was supposed to do).

Divide the dough into half. Shape each half of the dough into 1 inch thick discs. Wrap in cling film and chill for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Remove the discs of dough one at a time, and roll out 1/8 inch thick. Using Linzer cookie cutters, (I don’t have these so I used a mini star cutter and a circle cutter) cut out an even number of whole cookies and cookie tops with decorative shape cut outs. If the dough gets too warm to handle pop it in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Bake cookies 10-12 minutes and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet a couple minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.