Red Currants are one of the best things in life! I love their sweet and tart bites of juiciness. The season is incredibly short though, and to prolong the season, the one of the things that my family often does is make jelly. My mom made a whole bunch last week, and with some jelly, I made some Hazelnut Red Currant Linzer Cookies. Bite sized cookies with a great flavor!
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Hazelnut flour / ground hazelnuts
1 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup red currant jelly
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
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 the work bowl of your stand mixer, cream together butter, sugar and egg until light and fluffy. Beat in flour, hazelnut flour/meal, baking powder, salt 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. 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 red currant jelly to sandwich together two cookies to make a linzer cookie. Repeat until all cookies are used. Dust with confectioners’ sugar.
