Linzer Tarts

on

Linzer Tarts are basically a cut-out cookie with a raspberry jam filling. It is believed they were first made in Linz, Austria in the 1700’s. This is a cookie I always wanted to make, and I finally tried it this year. The recipe I chose, after looking at many, was this one from Allrecipes. I made the right choice because the dough was simple to make, easy to work with, and they taste great! 

Linzer Tarts

Prep. 30 min.   Cook. 10 min. 

Additional: 1 hr. and 30 min. 

Total Time: 2 hours

Yield: 12 cookies (I yielded 19 cookies.)

Ingredients:

  • 1-1/4 cups unsalted butter, softened
  • 2/3 cup white sugar
  • 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, divided ( I used King Arthur gluten-free all-purpose flour.)
  • 1-3/4 cups ground almonds
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
  • 5 tablespoons raspberry jam
  • 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar for decoration (I used Swerve Confectioners’ Sugar replacement.)
Instructions:
  1. Beat butter and sugar together until the mixture is light and fluffy. Stir in 1/2 cup flour, the ground almonds, and cinnamon. Mix in remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time until the mixture becomes a slightly stiff dough.
  2. Shape the dough into a ball; divide it in half. Wrap both halves in wax paper or plastic wrap, and refrigerate for about one hour.
  3. Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  4. On a lightly floured surface, roll half of the dough into a sheet 1/8 inch thick. With a 2-1/2 inch cookie cutter, cut as many circles from the sheet as you can. Knead the leftover scraps of dough into a ball and roll it out again into a 1/8 inch sheet. Cut out more circles. You should now have about 12 circles. (I used these cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma. They are on sale now. They worked perfectly.)
  5. Arrange cookies on prepared baking sheet, leaving about 1 inch of space between them. Refrigerate while working with remaining dough.
  6. Repeat the rolling and cutting process with the other half of the dough, but after placing the second batch on the baking sheet, cut out the center of each circle with a 1/2 inch cookie cutter.
  7. Bake cookies in preheated oven until light brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes.
  8. Spread a thin coating of jam on each of the cookie rounds. Set a cut out cookie on top of each, pressing the two together so they make a sandwich. Spoon a dab of jam into the opening of each tart and sprinkle the tops with confectioners sugar before serving.



They really turned out beautiful! I have a few tips. If you use the Williams-Sonoma cookie cutters, be sure to have the correct number of bottoms of cookies to go with the tops. I cut them out in a sequence of tree, snowflake, ornament, gingerbread boy, until half of the dough was gone. Then I repeated that pattern with the cookie tops, where I pressed the cookie cutter to make the “windows”. Also, it is important to refrigerate the cut-out cookies while you work on the remaining dough—Step 5. Be sure to cool the cookies, as they stated. They will crumble if you move them too soon. One last tip is that I put the confectioners’ sugar on the tops of the cookies before I placed them on the cookie bottoms. That way I did not get confectioners’ sugar in the little windows.

Give yourself a morning or afternoon to make these cookies. Turn on some holiday music while you bake! I really enjoyed making these Linzer Tarts and hope you do, too! 

*The “Milk and Cookies Towel”  is from 1851 Farmhouse and is on sale now.

Comments

Post a Comment