Happy Valentine’s Day! OK, it’s still a full on 10 days until Valentine’s Days, but I like to make cookies ahead of time. And Linzer Cookies it is, because I seem to *always* make Linzer Cookies at Valentine’s Day. This year, I went with some of both my standard (raspberry) but also Passion Fruit, which is a jam that is harder to find. Search around for a bit – it’s worth it (note: I found it in a Latin American bodega… language lesson of the day is that passion fruit in Spanish is Maracuya!)
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup passionfruit jam
1/4 cup raspberry jam
Powdered sugar, for dusting
You will also need two cookie cutters — one larger for the bottoms and one smaller, to cut the whole in the middle (or Linzer-specific ones, which have a hole cut out of the “top” cookies)
Directions
Preheat oven to 330F. Prepare cookie sheets with silpat or parchment paper.
In the work bowl of your stand mixer, cream together butter and powdered sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add in egg, then the vanilla extract and orange juice. In another mixing bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt, then gradually add dry ingredients to the butter mixture, beating just until blended. Divide dough into 2 equal portions. Cover and chill 1 hour.
Roll each portion to a 1/8-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface; cut with the larger cutter. Cut centers out of half of cookies with a smaller cutter. Make sure that you have an even number of solid and cut out cookies. Bake for 10 – 12 minutes; cool on wire racks. Spread solid cookies with jam and then sandwich with a cut out cookie. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.
