Introduction
These classic little cookies from a few ingredients are forever collecting compliments. They are crumbly in texture and delicate in flavour, not complicated and keep well for a couple of days in an airtight container. One of the easy entertaining recipes to impress your guests with and also popular to make at special occasions like weddings or around Christmas time. Fun to make and worth a try!
Ingredients
makes 16 pieces of sandwiched cookies (5” diameter)
For the dough:
- 380 gram (~ 3.5cups) plain/all-purpose flour
- 250 gram (~ 2 sticks or 1 cup) butter – room temperature
- 120 gram ( 1 cup) caster sugar / superfine sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 3 egg yolks
- grated zest of 1 un-waxed lemon
- icing sugar/confectioners’ sugar for dusting
For the filling
- 8 tablespoons smooth apricot jam
Method
- In a larger bowl rub the flour and butter together to form a crumble.
- Add the sugar, vanilla essence, 3 egg yolks, grated lemon zest and work the ingredients until form a dough. This won’t happen instantly so be patient.
- Gather the dough in a neat ball, flatten slightly, cover tightly in food wrap and rest in the fridge for at least one hour, also could be left overnight. If making for example a double portion, divide the dough in half and wrap the pieces individually for even cooling.
- When ready for the next step take the dough out of the fridge and let it warm up a bit at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile pre-heat oven to 180℃/350°F (A bit lower, 160°C for fan assisted ovens) also line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Roll out the dough rather thinly 2-3mm / 1/16-inch thick. Using cookie cutters dipped first in flour cut out the shapes. For the top pieces stamp out a smaller circle from the cookies (- I used the top cup of a miniature bottle, after much searching).
- Using a spatula, carefully lift the cookie shapes onto the prepared baking pan.
- Bake them for 9-10 minutes, in a 180℃/160℃ Fan/350°F oven, they are ready when just starting to turn golden around the edges.
-
Remove the pan from the oven and allow the cookies to cool while still on the pan, about 5-7 minutes. They will come out of the oven soft, but will harden and become easier to move and handle as they cool.
- When they are cooled completely, carefully sandwich a full and ring piece together with a teaspoon of apricot jam. It can help to warm the jam up slightly.
- Dust with icing sugar/confectioners’ sugar.
Hello Eva,
I tried your Linzer Cookies, followed the recipe but the dough turned out very heavy. I needed to add some milk in order to soften it for rolling. Is the recipe missing something?
Hello Suzanne, Hope they tured out nice! :-) As egg sizes and flour could vary possible a bit of milk was needed in your dough. Checked the recipe not missing anything. It is very crumbly, the dough seems dry at first but eventually should form the pastry with longer kneading, if for some reason not, because of smaller egg yolks maybe or a different flour then the milk or a bit of sour cream or yoghurt is a good idea.
Thanks for your reply, Eva. I will try the recipe again and add another egg yolk. Hopefully that will make it more workable. Let me know if you think I should add sour cream instead of the extra yolk.
Thanks again and have a wonderful Christmas. Kellemes Karacsonyt kivanok!
Hi Suzanne, best try a tablespoon or so of sour cream if the dough is still dry, that’s a popular ingredient in pastries and saves you an egg :-). Another thing I thought of; I knead it by hand and after a while the butter probably softens more also the gluten in the flour starts to work and becomes elastic, these help the dough to come together, in case using a food processor it might behave a bit differently but haven’t tried. Thanks for the well wishes, happy Christmas to you and family! Boldog Karácsonyt!
My Mom always used sour cream