Perfect Linzer Cookies
Linzer cookies: my most recent discovery for yet another way to fill my life with jammy-almond shortbread-ish cookies. They are delicate, buttery, and dusted with powdered sugar like a Christmas village. Too often Linzer tart cookies are dry and crunchy. But this recipe is oh-so-tender, delicate, and bursting with buttery-almond flavor. And that's before we smash them together with jam! The perfect addition to a tea party, Christmas or Valentine's Day plate!
Servings: 25 sandwiches
Calories: 189kcal
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar plus more for cookie tops
- 1/2 cup brown sugar packed
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour spooned and leveled
- 1 and 1/4 cup blanched almond flour
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 cup seedless jam any flavor, for sandwiching
Instructions
- Make the dough: In a large bowl or stand mixer, add 1 cup slightly softened butter. Beat until smooth and creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl at least once.
- Add 3/4 cup powdered sugar and 1/2 cup packed brown sugar. Beat again for about 3 minutes, until light in color and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl at least once halfway through.
- Add 2 egg yolks, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons almond extract, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and beat again until everything is incorporated, scraping down the sides.
- Use the spoon-and-level method (spoon the flour into a measuring cup and level off the top) to add 2 cups of all purpose flour to the bowl. Don't stir it in yet.
- Spoon and level 1 and 1/4 cups almond flour into the bowl, still no stirring.
- Add 1 teaspoon kosher salt to the flours, and gently stir it into the flour and almond flour with a small spoon (this is to make sure we don't get any pockets of salt.) If you only have table salt, use half the amount.
- Use the mixer to blend the wet and dry ingredients, just until combined. Do NOT over mix! Once you have stopped to scrape down the sides of the bowl, and you don't see any more streaks of white flour, stop the mixer. Over-mixing cookie dough makes the cookies tough.
- Chill the dough: Lay out 2 large sheets of plastic wrap. Divide the dough between the sheets, scraping it all out of the bowl. Pat each dough into a disc using the ends of the plastic wrap, then wrap each disc. Put the 2 discs in the fridge and chill for about 1-2 hours, until the dough is firm.
- Take the discs out of the fridge and let them rest on the counter for 5-10 minutes to soften a bit.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Roll out the dough: On a pastry cloth or an extra large silpat, use a rolling pin to roll out the dough very thin, to about 1/8 of an inch. See photos! If you are rolling out on a countertop, dust your work surface with flour but use as little as possible so as to not dry out the dough. Another method is to roll out the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap or parchment paper.
- Use cookie cutters. Working quickly so the dough is as cold as possible, use a 2-inch round cookie cutter or 2-inch fluted cookie cutter to cut as many circles as you can from the dough you have rolled out.
- Cut out centers of HALF the circles. With a smaller, 1-inch cookie cutter (of a Christmas tree, circle, or heart), cut out the centers of HALF of the larger circles. Don't cut all of them! You need a "bottom" for each cookie, that doesn't have a hole in it. (Reserve the cut-out-centers to bake separately into tiny cookies, if you like. But I usually just re-roll them with the remaining dough.)
- Use a small spatula to transfer the cut dough onto the lined baking sheets. You only need to leave about an inch of space between cookies; they don't rise or spread much at all.
- Chill the dough again. If possible, chill each pan of cookies in the fridge or freezer for 5-15 minutes, until the cut out dough is completely chilled again. COLD dough going into a HOT oven is an important part of the magic of what makes these cookies tender and flaky, not tough.
- Gather up the scraps of dough and mound them into a new disc again. Wrap them up and chill them until they are firm enough to roll. Repeat the cutting process with all the remaining dough.
- Bake the COLD cookies at 350 for about 5-6 minutes. They should no longer be shiny on top, but they shouldn't be getting brown on the edges either. Do NOT over bake, or they will be too crunchy.
- Take them out of the oven and let them set up on the pan for a couple minutes before transferring them on a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Dust the cut-out tops with powdered sugar. Lay your cut-out cookie tops on a separate baking sheet or piece of parchment paper. Add powdered sugar to a mini strainer, and gently sprinkle the cut-outs with powdered sugar so they are completely dusted.
- Add about 1/2 cup seedless jam to a small bowl. You can eyeball this, no need to bust out a measuring cup. Stir the jam with a spoon until it is smooth.
- Fill with jam. Add a little more than a teaspoon of jam to the top of the whole-circle cookies. Add a powdered sugar cookie top to each circle cookie spread with jam, and gently press them together. Aren't they so cute?? Try not to eat them all immediately, just wait until you stack them all on a plate. So pretty.
- Storage: Store these cookies in an airtight container on the counter. If you don't plan to eat all the cookies right away, wait until the last minute to fill the cookies with jam.
Notes
Instead of jam, try filling these cookies with Nutella, Lemon Curd, or Pastry Cream!
Nutrition
Calories: 189kcal | Carbohydrates: 22g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.3g | Cholesterol: 35mg | Potassium: 26mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 11g | Vitamin A: 248IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 22mg | Iron: 1mg