Linzer Cookies!!

Tonight's recipe is my Dad's favorite....LINZER COOKIES!!!

When researching a recipe I found that true linzer cookies have ground almonds in the dough. There is a bakery by me that calls their sugar cookies with jam in the middle "linzer cookies", but there are no ground almonds in the dough, so technically they are just sugar cookies with jam in the middle. :)

A few notes about the recipe:
- I grind the almonds in a mini food processor. You need 1 3/4 cups ground almonds. I usually start with a big bag of sliced almonds (4 cups), to be sure I will have enough once I grind them.
- The flour is "2 cups sifted flour"...so sift the flour first and then measure it.

O.k...here is the recipe:

Linzer Cookies

Ingredients:
1 ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 ¾ cup ground almonds
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Raspberry or strawberry jam
Confectioners sugar for dusting


Method:
1. Cream butter and sugar together until mixture light and fluffy.
2. Beat in flour, ½ cup at a time. Beat in almonds and cinnamon until mixture becomes a stiff dough.
3. Shape dough into a ball and refrigerate 1 hour.
4. Heat oven to 325.
5. Roll out dough to ¼ inch thick. Cut an even number of tops (with hole cut out) and bottoms. Re-roll as needed.
6. Bake 10-15 minutes until light golden brown. Remove to cooling rack, dust tops with confectioners sugar. Spread jam on bottoms and assemble.

Now...for some photo highlights!



First...this picture below is my new rolling pin I used! I got it from QVC. Here is the link for it. It is neat in that there are different disks that can be placed on the side of the rolling pin to allow the rolling pin to roll the dough to the EXACT measurement you want. See how I have the red disk on the side? That made it so my dough was rolled to exactly 1/4 inch and it worked!



This pic below shows my dough. (My pics are awful...I am so not a good photographer!) You can see the chunks of ground almonds in the dough.





Here are the cookie cutters I used. One 2 1/2 inch circle and then a smaller circle. I got them at the craft store. You can do shapes too...like a star with a smaller star in the middle...but that gets more tricky!

Here are the bottoms ready to be baked!

See that tiny spatula below?? It is PERFECT for lifting the cookies up off the mat I use to roll them out on. It is from Pampered Chef.

Here are the tops...just out of the oven and dusted with confectioners sugar.



And...the finished cookie...even prettier in person!

Enjoy!