Linzer cookies are a beautiful treat for the holidays. Made with ground almonds and sandwiched together with a layer of raspberry jam, these cookies are simply iresistible!

Time:95 min, Prep: 80 min.  Cook: 15 min. per batch
Servings: ~40-45 cookies

Ingredients:

• 250 g white flour               
• 250 g ground almonds
• 200 g sugar
• 1 Tbsp cocoa
• 1 pouch vanilla sugar (9 g)
• 3 eggs
• 250 g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• a pinch of ground allspice
• 2 Tbsp cherry liquor
• 250 g raspberry jam
• icing sugar  for dusting

You also need cookie cutters in whatever shape you prefer (~ 8 cm and a smaller one so you can make a small “window” for the cookie on top). I used stars and Christmas trees to bring the holiday spirit into our home.

Directions:

In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients – sugar, ground almonds, flour, cinnamon, allspice, vanilla sugar and cocoa. Then make a hole in the middle and add egg, cherry liquor, and the butter cut into small pieces.

Knead with your hands until all ingredients are incorporated.  Dough will be soft and maybe a little sticky but make sure it’s not too sticky as you should be able to roll it (add more flour if necessary). Wrap the dough in aluminum foil or plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

Remove ¼ of the dough from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface roll the dough until it’s about ¾ cm thick. Using the cookie cutters cut out the dough. Using the smaller cookie cutter, cut out centers from half of the cookies (I only did this for some of the star-shaped cookies). Reroll the centers and any scraps.

There are two options to “sandwich” the cookies together: you can do it before baking the cookies, just place raspberry jam on the solid cookie and place the cutout cookie on top; or you can assemble the cookies after baking them but you need to heat the jam a little bit until it has thickened slightly.  Make sure to fill the cut-out with a little more jam. I have tried both options but I prefer the latter as the cookies look nicer – at least the stars with cut-outs.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).  Place the cookies about 2 cm apart in a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Bake the cookies for 15 minutes or until they are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and dust the cookies with icing sugar. Sandwich the cookies, if you haven’t done so before baking.