Linzer cookies are a classic. I am not a big fan of cookies but these treats are one of my favorite things to bake and eat. Autumn is around the corner and I had some home made carrot jam that I received from my mother (I’ll try to get the recipe from her but you know how moms provide recipes! “a little bit of” this and “heaping spoon of” that, then you “bake it until it turns an amber-ish purple” 🤨 …yeah thanks, mom 😒)
Anyway… the carrot jam is perfect for autumn, both visually and taste-wise. The recipe is something I have come up with after trying a bunch of different ones. It works for me and I hope it works for you too!
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- carrot jam (or your favorite jam)
- powdered sugar, for dusting
Instructions
- For the dough: In a bowl whisk together the flour, almond flour, and salt. Set aside.
- Beat butter and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes). Add the egg yolk, vanilla and cinnamon and continue beating until combined.
- Add the flour to the liquid mixture and combine using a flat beater attachment or by hand using a spatula until combined. Do no over-mix!
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let sit for at least an hour. (I sometimes put it in the fridge and go about doing my errands and come back to it when I am good and ready! Just make sure you bring it back to room temperature before you start working on it)
- For Baking: divide the dough in half. Roll it out on a lightly floured surface to about ¼ inch thick. For cutting out the cookies you can use special cutters for Linzer cookies or just use a round 2 ½-3 inch cookie cutter.
- Gather up remaining of the dough and repeat. Half of your dough should yield to about 20 cookies.
- Roll out the second half and repeat, only this time you are going to make a small circle (or in the case of my autumn-themed cookies, a small leaf-shaped hole using these cutters). Keep gathering all the extra dough and repeating this process until you have the same number of cookies with the peekaboo cutout as the whole cookies.
- Place cookies on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and chill in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes (or until they have hardened a bit).
- Preheat oven to 350 F and bake cookies for about 12 minutes or until they start to turn golden. Remove and let them cool down to room temperature.
- Filling the cookies: place the cookies with the cutout in the middle on parchment paper and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
- Fill a piping bag with your favorite jam. I used my mom’s homemade carrot jam for my autumn cookies. Pipe a small circle on the flat side of the whole cookies and top each with one with the peekaboo cutout.
