Linzer Sandwich Cookies
INGREDIENTS
  • Servings: 16
  • 1 cup unblanched hazelnuts
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 lg egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour (plus more for the work surface)
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2/3 cup of jam (I used my Pomegranate Jelly)
  • Powder sugar for dusting
DIRECTIONS
  1. Preheat the oven to 375' F.
  2. Toast your hazelnuts on a cookie sheet for about 10 minutes. Immediately transfer the nuts to a clean towel and vigorously rub them in the towel to remove the skins.
  3. It kinda worked. I got a workout. The nuts were not completely skinless or even halfway skinless. There has got to be a better way.
  4. Anyways....set the semi-skinless nuts aside and allow to cool completely. Once cool, place in a food processor and grind them up until they are....well..... finely ground. Set aside.
  5. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed for about 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat for another 3 minutes, until smooth. Beat in the vanilla.
  6. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Add to the butter mixture (I added a little at a time), beat on low to combine.
  7. Divide the dough in half and flatten into disks. Wrap them with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least an hour or overnight.
  8. When you're ready to bake:
  9. Preheat the oven to 350' Prepare 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Get out a 2 1/2" round cookie cutter and a 3/4" theme cookie cutter.
  10. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/4".
  11. Well, if your dough is anything like mine, it might be a bit on the crumbly side and not very rollable. What I did at this point was to form it into a ball first...and get that dough meshed together. Flattened it.... then it was very agreeable to being rolled out to 1/4" and then cut with the 2 1/2" round cookie cutter
  12. Carefully transfer the cookies to one of the prepared cookie sheets. Using the decorative cookie cutter, cut out the centers of half of the rounds
  13. Repeat with the rest of the dough and the scraps.
  14. Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, until the edges are golden brown. Remove from the oven and place on wire racks to cool completely.
  15. Once they're completely cooled off, you can dust the decorative tops with powdered sugar.
  16. Spread a little jam on the bottoms (about a tablespoon)
  17. Put the sugar dusted, decorative tops on and there you have the prettiest little tasty cookies ever.
RECIPE BACKSTORY
Not much of a backstory here. I saw them on TV, hunted the recipe down on the net and baked them, loved them and will bake them again.