Fantastic Linzer Cookies You'll Make On Repeat!
Linzer cookies are delicious sandwich cookies that you'll want to make over and over again. They are a party hit and are easy to make! My linzer cookies are healthier and wholesome and taste soo wonderful!
Equipment
- Grainmill (optional) - use if you grind your own flour
- A bowl - for mixing the dough
- A hand mixer
- Nut or cheese rotary grinder (optional) - to grind the nuts into a meal
- Coffee and spice grinder (optional) for a finer textured nut flour after making nut meal, and for grinding the sugar
- Rolling Pin
- Parchment paper
- Two baking sheets - light colored is best
- cooling rack
- Scale (optional, but highly recommended!)
Ingredients
- 113 g Butter (1 stick or 4 oz) - at room temperature
- 3 tbsp Panela sugar - finely ground
- 1 Large egg yolk (optional)
- 1 tsp Lemon zest or lemon paste - you could use a few drops of lemon oil instead too.
- ½ tsp Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
- ½ tsp Almond extract
- ⅛ tsp Sea salt
- 160 g Einkorn flour (approximately 1 ½ cups) I recommend using the weight for the best cookies.
- 80 g Almond or Hazelnut flour - unblanched is best.
- Organic powdered sugar for dusting - or finely ground cane sugar mixed with a a few pinches of arrowroot starch
- Raspberry or Apricot jam - or other fillings, see notes
Instructions
Making the cookies
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
- Add the egg yolk and beat well.
- Add all the spices and salt and beat for another minute.
- Dump in the einkorn and nut flour and mix just very briefly just to combine. Stop mixing and press the dough together to form a ball.
- Flatten the ball of dough, wrap in a piece of parchment and refrigerate for an hour or so.
- Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out between two sheets of parchment. You can first let it warm just a bit to make this easier.
- Sprinkle nut flour on both sides of the dough to help with rolling and cutting. Flip the dough disk a couple of times and roll and reapply nut meal till it's the desired thickness. About ⅛ inch is perfect.
- Use your favorite shape to cut out cookies. I used a 2 ½ inch round cutter and little round or heart shapes for the center. This will yield about 24 rounds depending on the thickness of the dough and the size of your cookies.
- Half of these rounds will get a little center peekaboo hole. Use whatever cutter you prefer, just make it small enough to leave a substantial frame.
- Careful not to break or change the shape of these rings when transferring them to a baking sheet
- You can make a few mini-cookies with the center cutouts or re-roll them and cut another large cookie.
- I like to use a bench knife for transferring the cookies.
- Place them on parchment lined baking sheets. Use one for the whole circles and another for the rings with the cutouts and the minis.
- Refrigerate the baking sheets with the cookies on them for best shape retention when baking. See notes if your baking sheets don't fit into the fridge.
- Preheat the oven to 375-400℉ about 5-10 minutes before you're ready to bake.
- Bake the cookies at 375 -400 degrees till they start to turn golden. Don't undercook, but watch them closely so they won't turn brown. Golden is perfect. check after 5 minutes and then every half minute. They can go from golden to burnt very quickly.
Filling the cookies
- Take the baking sheets out of the oven immediately and after one minute, transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. Once cooled, dust the rings with powdered sugar.
- Spread a layer of jam onto the solid rounds and place a dusted ring on top. When stacking them in a tin, place parchment between the layers. You may need to refresh the dusting if you're serving them several days later. Just cut a small piece of parchment, the size of the little cutout hole and cover the jam with it. Dust the cookie and remove the piece of parchment.
Storage
- These cookies really improve after a day or two in a sealed tin in both, flavor and texture, so plan to make them ahead of time.They will stay fresh for a week in a cookie tin, stored in a cool place, or refrigerate them, especially if you're using lemon curd or other filling that is not shelf-stable.For longer storage, you can freeze them. They will keep for 3 months in the freezer.Tip: If you want to make these ahead, bake the cookies and store them without filling them in an airtight container. Then, when you need some Linzer cookies, dust the tops and fill them. The unfilled cookies will stay good for a month.
Notes
Variations
This is a delicious dough that you can use for any kind of cutout cookie and it's great for stuffing with your favorite jam, jelly, caramel or dulce de leche or a really thick cajeta. Or try chocolate ganache, butter cream, or nutella. Or how about fig jam or ground dates, hmm I might just have to try that! You could skip the little window, make them a bit smaller, and, after sandwiching them together, dip them in melted chocolate. I love spreading them with orange marmalade and then dipping them half-way in chocolate. Delish!These are great Christmas cookies, but they are awesome too for Valentine's Day, anniversaries, bridal showers, birthdays, picnics, or any parties. Or use them for the fourth of july with red and blue berry jams showing through larger windows.
Tips And Variations For The Best Linzer Cookies
- Chill the dough after making it to make it easier to cut out the cookies.
- Use two pieces of parchment and sprinkle with nut flour when rolling out the dough. Flip occasionally while rolling and re-flour. Dip the cookie cutter into the nutmeal between cuts to keep the dough from sticking to it.
- After cutting out the cookie shapes, place the cookie tray into the fridge to chill them well before baking. This will help keep the shape of the cookies and prevent spreading. My fridge isn't wide enough to fit a whole cookie sheet. So I have a small cookie sheet and I place all the pieces on it and stack them, with layers divided by parchment paper. When finished, I put this in the fridge and when they are chilled through, and it's time to bake, I place them on the bigger baking sheets.
- Bake the tops and bottoms separately. The tops need less time to bake.
- Watch the cookies closely while baking! Check after 5 minutes and then check about every half minute. They are done when they just turn golden at the bottom, and then they turn brown really fast. You want them to be golden, not brown.
- If you don't have einkorn flour, you can use all-purpose flour, but reduce to 150g.
- I grind my panela sugar fine before I mix it with the butter. You could substitute fine coconut sugar or evaporated cane juice crystals.
- Switch out the nuts. I love these with ground almonds, but I think they are super extra good with ground hazelnuts, which is what was used in the traditional Linzer torte recipe. I imagine these Linzer cookies would be wonderful with ground walnuts or pecans too.
- Don't forget to dust the tops before sandwiching them together. If you forget, cut out a small piece of parchment to match the cutout shape and cover the peekaboo hole. Then dust.
- Don't use too much jam or they might turn soggy after a day. And it's best to use a thick jam that isn't runny. If you don't like the seeds in raspberry jam, just strain them out with a sieve. I love currant jelly and apricot jam with these too!
Enjoy These Fantastic Linzer Cookies!
If you made these cookies with me just now, try one if you like, they are delicious. But they will need to spend a day or two in a lidded cookie tin to become what they were meant to be. Go try another one then and I think you'll be so impressed. I hope you'll love these delicious Linzer cookies as much as I do. I'm certain that you'll be making them over and over again! Take a bite and enjoy!Shopping List
Equipment
- Greenpan baking sheets
- Mockmill
- Nutrimill
- Rolling pin
- Parchment paper
- Cooling rack
- Hand mixer
- Vitamix
- Blender
- Food processor
- Coffee, nut and spice grinder
- Rotary grater
Ingredients
- Panela sugar
- Evaporated cane juice
- Coconut sugar
- Organic vanilla sugar
- Redmond's real salt
- Himalayan pink salt
- Celtic sea salt
- Almonds
- Hazelnuts
- Walnuts
- Pecans
- Organic powdered sugar
- Raspberry jam
- Apricot jam
- Ceylon cinnamon
- Almond extract
- Einkorn berries
- Einkorn flour
- Organic vanilla extract. You can get it in bulk from Azure Standard