Sometimes, a photo turns out just right — and for some reason, I find these photos just lovely. I have baked literally tens of thousands of linzer cookies in my days and for some reason, the way that I photographed this batch makes me very happy. Sometimes it is all about the visuals — though these do taste pretty fantastic as well!
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Almond Meal / ground almonds
1 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup each seedless raspberry and mango-peach jams
Powdered sugar
You will also need: a linzer cookie cutter, or two cutters of the same size, one with a shaped hole, or standard cookie cutter and a small circular cutter
Directions
In mixing bowl, cream together unsalted butter, sugar and egg until light and fluffy. Beat in flour, almond meal, baking powder, almond and vanilla extracts until smooth and well combined. Chill in refrigerator 2-3 hours or until firm enough to be rolled.
Preheat over to 400F. Roll out half of the dough on a well-floured surface to 1/4-inch thickness (be careful to get the surface even, otherwise you will have oddly-browned cookies. Also, do not roll the dough to thin, otherwise you will have hard cookies when they come out of the oven).
Roll out half of the dough on a well-floured surface to 1/4-inch thickness (be careful to get the surface even, otherwise you will have oddly-browned cookies. Also, do not roll the dough too thin, otherwise you will have hard cookies when they come out of the oven). Cut out an equal number of full cookies and cookies with holes in the middle. Repeat this with other half of the dough.
Bake 8-10 minutes or until golden brown at the edges. Cool on wire rack. Once completely cooled, use the seedless raspberry and mango-peach jams (not on the same cookie) to sandwich together two cookies to make a linzer cookie. Repeat until all cookies are used. Dust with confectioners’ sugar.
