Holidays aren’t complete without baking cookies. Although, I have not been baking very often these days. But the holiday season put me back on to the baking spree. I’d call it a baking spree only, while I was at home relaxing through long weekend, a friend of mine asked me to bake a cake. So eventually, I baked these lovely festive cashew linzer cookies along with a family favorite coffee cake from my repertoire. It’s the coffee cake, which I have baked umpteen number of times, and everyone has loved it to the bits without fail. These linzer cookies had already been playing on my mind, a couple of weeks before Christmas. But owing to the schedule and the laziness, I couldn’t bake them for Christmas. So the very next day, I whipped up these jam sandwich cookies. Last time I baked linzer cookies was a couple of years back and I just fell in love with these jammy cookies. They remind me of the childhood, although I have never been a great fan of jam (read, don’t hate here). But strangely enough, I love these cookies which are perfectly spiced for the holiday season. The sweetness of the crumbly shortbread like cookies goes so well with the tart flavor of jam you chose to sandwich between the two cookies. Plus you get to play around with different shapes and cutouts, you could ever fancy!
- 200 gm unsalted butter, softened
- 120 gm castor sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla powder
- 2 egg yolks
- 150 gm ground cashews
- 300 gm plain flour
- 1 tsp lemon extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 jar of raspberry jam , or any other flavor you like
- icing sugar, to dust
- Preheat oven to 180 degree C and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a bowl, cream together the butter and castor sugar. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add the cashew powder, flour, vanilla powder, salt and lemon extract. Mix well and bring together to form a dough.
- Divide the dough in half. Flatten into discs, wrap each disc into cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
- Roll out one half of the dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/2 cm thickness. Cut out cookies around 6 cm in diameter. Place the cookies on one of baking sheet. Punch another hole with a smaller cutter in the center of cookie. Repeat with the second piece of dough, without punching the second hole this time.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until cookies just start to color. Remove baking sheets from oven and cool on wire rack.
- When the cookies are completely cooled, spread the jam on whole cookies. Dust the cookies with hole with icing sugar and place on top of whole cookie making a sandwich. Repeat, until all cookies are assembled. Store covered for a day or two.
These look delicious!