Drumroll please… the final bake of the 2017 Bake Everything Project is here! Don’t worry, the blog will go on in 2018 with lots of shiny new (and some repeat/improvement) bakes! Week 52: Linzer Cookies

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Tis the season for piles of Christmas cookies. I don’t know about you, but I still have a plethora of cookies in various sizes, shapes and colors that’ll take me well into the new year to finish. These classy linzer cookies are two slices of almond shortbread sandwiched with a sweet filling and doused in powder sugar. The top cookie has a window cut out so you can see the filling – no secrets here!

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These shortbread gems are the cookie versions of the classic Austrian linzertorte (named for the Austrian town of Linz, where it first appeared.) The typical filling in American bakeries is raspberry jam, making them festive Christmas cookies. Also, we can pretend the powdered sugar on top is snow. Cue Bing Crosby singing White Christmas.

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So this week’s bake wraps up my 2017 new year’s resolution – ta-daa! To be quite honest, it’s the only new year’s resolution I’ve ever kept for the full year. There have been a few burns, tears and broken eggs, of course. But mostly, the year has been full of sugar highs, fun facts and pride in the fact that I am able to make something yummy! Special shout-out to my mom for the use of her huge array of baking pans and counter space, as well as her encouraging words after each melting, collapsing failure. And to all of the lovely people in my life who have eaten my creations and supported my crazy need to devote a night per week to whipping up a new bake. Lots of love for ya’ll.

Almost all of the recipes I read involved making my own almond flour by blending roasted almonds with sugar til finely ground. Since I already had almond flour, I made the executive decision to skip that step. That way, I didn’t have to worry about over-blending it and creating almond butter. Phew!

The dough has a dash of cinnamon and cardamom – it adds a little sumpin’ sumpin’.

Once chilled and rolled out, it’s time to break out the mini cookie cutters. I chose the mini star shape, though any of them would be cute!

Gotta love all the star scraps. Like doughnut holes, they are a happy accident.

I’m starstruck!

Bring on the blizzard.

I had to make sure to sugar-bomb the tops of the cookies before sandwiching them with the filling. Didn’t want to ruin the visual effect of the window by having an even coat of sugar over the whole cookie!

It was a close tie between grapefruit curd and chocolate for my favorite filling. If you’ve never tried grapefruit curd, go forth and buy some. It’s. So. Good.

Brb, making sugar art.

I’m impressed by how the dough maintained it’s scalloped edges post-sauna. There’s a lot of potential for fun shapes for future batches.

Happy munching!
Recipe mostly from: http://littlespicejar.com/raspberry-almond-linzer-cookies/