Raspberry Linzer Cookies – My All Time Christmas Favorite

I can say with confidence that Linzer cookies are my favorite Christmas cookies and I make them every year. They look so beautiful and are a real attention grabber of every cookie box or a platter.

There are endless varieties of jam to use, as well as chocolate or caramel for filling. With all the numerous possibilities, raspberry and apricot jam still remain my favorite.

Christmas cookie platter is a big thing in Croatia. Every household has to have a plate of many different shaped and flavoured cookies. Christmas is getting closer and I am slowly filling out my cookies list. I use this cookie dough for several different cookie shapes and it is a favorite of mine. I am sure it will make any Christmas cookie mix prettier and more delicious. And what I love the most about it, it gets better over time. So you can make this a couple of days ahead and just store it in an airtight container.

Funny things that most of Croatian guys have lived to see for at least once in their lives, is coming to grandmas house and seeing a cookie box and naturally expecting it to be filled with cookies. But no! In most cases, that couldn’t be more far from the truth. Balkan grandmas like to store their sewing kit inside. Thats such a common thing, only people there would understand.

Anyhow, after my short digression, let’s proceed with the cookies.

As I often mention, I adore hazelnuts. And I add them in different batters whenever it is appropriate because hazelnuts make every cake taste better. If it is a chocolate one. And sometimes even if it is not.

Toasting nuts is important

I always like to emphasise toasting the nuts in a hot pan for a couple of minutes, it enhances natural nut oils to release and enrich the flavour. So, do not skip that part if adding nuts.

When toasted, set them aside on a dry kitchen towel and let them cool slightly. by rubbing them inside the towel, peel the skins. They should come off easily. Separate the skins and then ground the nuts in a food processor as fine as your recipe requires it. In this recipe, grind them quite finely.

What filling to use

In this recipe, I have used raspberry jam. That is my favorite filling, next to apricot jam. It’s hard for me to decide among the two. 

You can use different fillings and make a couple of varieties. Chocolate is also a great option. Or salted caramel caramel.

Traditional jam filling is my first option. Mainly because of the flavour it provides, but also because it gives moist to the dough as time goes by. That’s the reason these cookies get better in flavour and texture day by day.

How to prepare the cookie dough

Start off by weighing all of your ingredients.

Combine all of the dry ingredients and butter cut into cubes. Use your hands to combine these ingredients and to achieve a sand-alike mixture. It will take you a couple of minutes. After this step is done, add eggs and vanilla extract and combine them gently and with working the dough as little as possible. If you work the dough too much, it will become more stretchy and gummy due to gluten development. So do that as fast as possible.

Now it is necessary to store prepared dough into the fridge to set. Butter needs to become solid again in order that we could roll the dough out and cut coot out the shapes we want. I like dividing the dough in two batches so that one batch can stay in the fridge while you are working with the other one.

Wrap your two dough balls in a  plastic wrap and leave them in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up.

Making Linzer cookies

When your dough is ready, take it out of the fridge. In the meantime, turn the oven on and let it preheat to 180 deg C or 360 F.

Put some parchment paper inside your baking tray and start making the cookies. 

Roll the dough 4-5 mm thin. Now it is time to use all your favorite cookie cutters and cut the shapes you want or like. 

Half of the cookies have to have a hole in the middle. Those are going to be the upper cookies and jam will be seen through the hole nicely.

A little trick of mine for cutting the small whole, considering the fact that I don’t have such a small cutter, I use the cover of an old lip balm. Funny but efficient. Wash it before use, of course. Dip it in flout to prevent from sticking and cut the holes in the middle. 

Arrange the cookies on a  prepared baking tray.

Bake the cookies in an oven, preheated to 180°C or 360 F for about 8 minutes, depending on your oven. They are done when the edges slightly change in colour. The key to all shortbread cookies is to bake them until colour slightly starts to change on the edges. Don’t let them go slightly brown, then they are already over baked. 

Take them out and let them cool completely. Proceed with cutting and baking the rest of the cookies.

How to decorate the cookies

Here comes the most interesting part of Linzer preparation, at east for me. I like assembling them and sandwiching two cookies together.

Pressing the bottom of the Linzer cookie in powdered sugar is optional. I do it sometimes, I didn’t do it here.

Arrange all the upper cookies, the ones with the hole in the middle, next to each other and dust them with powdered sugar.

Use a little bit of jam and put it on a lower cookie, spread it slightly. Now take the upper dusted cookie and press it gently to the lower one.

Keep up with the process until you spend all the cookies.

Storing

Store the cookies in an airtight container.  They will last for up to a few days. As time goes by, they will soften up and become even more delicious.