Vegan Linzer Cookies
Vegan Linzer cookies - these delicious jam sandwich biscuits are light, tender and melt-in-the-mouth with a nutty, buttery, jammy flavour. They are easy to make but look so beautiful with their jammy centres and snowy dusting of sugar; they are the perfect holiday cookie!
Servings 30 cookies
Ingredients
- 100 g (3 ½ oz) ground hazelnuts or almonds
- 300 g (2 ½ cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 225 g (1 cup) vegan block butter (NOT the spreadable kind. I use Naturli Vegan Block) slightly softened
- 125 g (½ cup + 2 Tablespoons) caster (superfine) sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- finely grated zest 1 lemon (optional)
- 1 Tablespoon non-dairy milk
- jam to fill
- icing (powdered) sugar to dust
Instructions
- Line a couple of baking sheets with baking parchment.
- Stir together the flour, ground nuts, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla extract and lemon zest with an electric mixer for 1-2 minutes.
- Add the dry ingredients and stir with a spatula until no lumps of butter remain. Add the milk and mix to form a dough. Knead it just briefly, until it is smooth. Do not over-work the dough.
- Divide the dough into two discs, wrap them and refrigerate for about 1 hour, until the dough is firm enough to roll out.
- Roll one of the discs of dough out on a floured surface to 4mm (⅛ in) thick. Use approximately 6 cm/ 2 ⅓ inch cookie cutters in your choice of shapes to cut out as many cookies as you can. If you are using a selection of different shaped cutters, remember that you need an equal number of each shape to create the sandwiches.
- Use a mini cutter or the wide end of a piping nozzle to cut out a shape from the centre of half of the cookies.
- Gently transfer the cookies to the lined baking sheets, slightly spaced apart.
- Bring together the scraps of dough, roll out again and cut out more cookies. Refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes first if it is too soft to roll.
- Place the trays of cookies in the freezer for 15 minutes, or the fridge for 30 while you preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F/gas mark 4.
- Bake the chilled cookies for 9-12 minutes until light golden around the edges. Cool on the tray for 5 mins then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- Repeat with the other disc of dough, making sure the baking sheets are cold before you load them with more cookies.
- Once all of the cookies are baked and have cooled completely, place the ones with the middle cut out on a wire rack and dust with icing sugar.
- Spread a dollop of jam over the other half of the cookies, leaving a border. Don't use too much or it will splurge out the sides, but don't be stingy either. It may be a good idea to assemble a test cookie to judge the right amount of jam.
- Pick up one of the sugar dusted cookies, touching the edges only, and place it on top of one of the jam spread ones. Repeat with the rest of the cookies. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.
Notes
- See post above for tips, details, storage and freezing instructions and step-by-step photos.
- As with all of my baking recipes I really do recommend using the metric measurements with a digital scale rather than the cup conversions. Cups are a wildly inaccurate measuring system and you will get far better, more consistent results using a scale, not to mention that it is also easier and less messy than cups!
- A rolling pin with measuring rings is very helpful to ensure that you roll the dough out to exactly the right thickness. I have this one.