Cooking Delights: Linzer cookies

Linzer cookies- two almond flavoured cookies sandwiched together with a filling of jam,top

dusted with icing sugar and a cut out so you can see the colour of the jam!

The same ingredients are used in making Linzer torte or cake.
Linzer torte is an Austrian torte with a lattice design on top of the pastry.
It is named after the city of Linz in Austria.

Linzer torte is often made like small tarts or cookies in North America!

Ingredients:
Whole Almonds-1 cup or 150 gms,
All purpose flour or maida- 2 cups or 260 gms,
Ground cinnamon-1/2 tsp,
Zest of 2 small lemons,
Salted butter- 200 gms - room temperature,
Granulated sugar ( powdered )-1/2 cup (100gms divided),
Vanilla essence- 1tsp,
Egg yolk-2.
Topping- icing sugar-1/4 cup,
Filling- Jam- you can fill jam of your choice.

Note: These cookies are eaten during the christmas time,so the best time for baking these cookies is in winters.
The weather is hot and humid now and the dough is fragile due to almond meal!
You can make the cookies few days ahead and keep in a container at room temperature or store in the fridge!
Spread the jam when you plan to serve as the jam will soften the cookies a little,but if you like soft cookies then go ahead as it adds flavour when stored!

Method:You can half the recipe to make small amount.
Roast the almonds in the oven for ten minutes at 350 F or 180 C.
Leave it to cool in the tray.

Grind the almonds and 1/4 cup sugar in a grinder until finely ground.(sugar is added to prevent the almonds from turning to paste).

In a separate bowl whisk or sift together flour,cinnamon pwd and lemon zest.

In bowl of your mixer beat the butter and and the remaining sugar until light and fluffy(2 to 3 minutes).

Beat in the vanilla and egg yolks for a minute.

Add in the ground almond and beat for 20 seconds.

Then add the flour and beat until just combined.

Gather the dough into a ball and transfer to your counter.
Divide the dough into half.

Spread two sheets of cling film and on each sheet make a small disc of the dough and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Spread one sheet of wax paper or butter paper on your counter and put one disc of dough on it.
(since the dough is very fragile we need to roll it in between two sheets of butter paper)

Top it with another sheet of butter paper and roll the dough into 1/4 inch thickness.

Transfer the sheet to a baking tray and put in the fridge to harden for 10 minutes in the freezer or 30 to 60 minutes in the fridge.

Pre heat oven to 350 F or 180 C
Take out one tray from the fridge and using a 3 inch cutter cut out the shapes.
( you can use round,square or heart shape cutter - one big 3 inch size and one small cutter)

You have to keep in mind that for each linzer cookie,you need 2 cookies-one for bottom and one for top.
Use a small cookie cutter to cut out the centers of half of the cookies.
In total 32 cookies are cut.
Place the cookies 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.

Gather all the scraps and cut out the remaining cookies.
Repeat with the second dough.
If the cookies are soft ,place the unbaked cookies in the fridge for about 10 minutes.
This will prevent the cookies from spreading and losing their shape when baked.
Bake the cookies for 15 minutes or until light brown around the edges.

Remove from oven and cool on wire rack for 2 minutes.