Nutty Linzer Cookies

Linzer cookies are known as one of the most popular Christmas cookies out there. Every festive season, many of us create this delicious sandwiched cookie at home! But the festive season is long gone and I am making these again. Besides, these can be made on other special occasions too. What I love most about these cookies is that there is room for creativity and customizing your own flavours or fillings. These Nutty Linzer Cookies are sweet, dainty and nutty, filled with a delicious jam in the middle. All together they are the perfect melt in your mouth cookie moment.

For me, Linzer Cookies can be a year round type of cookie. Even though it is still summer here in New Zealand, I have been enjoying these cookies cold. I simply keep them covered in the fridge, which is honestly not a bad idea!

The combination of the hazelnuts and walnuts turned out great. At first, I was a bit skeptical about combining the two types of nuts in one dough, but it turned out great! You can totally skip out on the cinnamon if you want to. These cookies are always sure to turn out so pretty and so very delicious!

Luckily this recipe is not a difficult one to make and almost impossible to mess up.

Making the Nutty Linzer Cookies

You don’t need to go out of your way to get any special ingredients. Most likely, these ingredients will be staples in your home. Maybe a trip to the local store for some hazelnuts and walnuts is all you will need to do.

If you are not an experienced baker, I would recommend measuring out all of the ingredients and having them ready! This makes everything easier.

The first step will be to cream the butter with the sugar until the butter becomes soft and fluffy.. This only takes a few minutes. Then throw in the whole egg, egg yolk and cinnamon. Lastly, add the flour, walnuts, hazelnuts a pinch of salt and combine!

Once the dough comes together, roll it into a disc, wrap into some glad wrap and forget about it until tomorrow.

That is, refrigerate over night.

The next day, roll out the dough, cut out the cookies, refrigerate a tad bit more and bake. Not a tricky process after all.

Putting the cookies together

It’s as simple as sandwiching the two cookies together with the jam in the middle. Once the cookies are baked and cooled, place the jam on the cookie that does not have the cut out in the middle.

With the cookies that have a cut out in the center, place them on a different tray or surface, and dust them with powdered sugar prior to adding them on top of the cookie with the jam.

And just like that you have a beautiful, nutty & jam filled Linzer cookie.

Some tips …

Make the dough ahead of time. The dough should preferably sit in the fridge overnight. The dough can also be kept in the fridge for up to two days prior..

Don’t skip the refrigeration time or try to speed things up. You’ll end up with a dough that is frustrating to work with.

Working with a dough that contains butter can make things soften very quickly.. You will need to work speedily and refrigerate or freeze the dough in between rolling out the cookie shapes. When the dough softens and sticks too much, this is a sign it needs to cool down.

I used a scone cutter for the cookies and a tiny, heart shaped cookie cutter. But you can use any cookie cutters you have.

If you’re working in a hot kitchen (like I did), I suggest rolling the dough, cutting the cookies and then placing them all back in the fridge for a further 5-10 minutes so that the dough does not become overly soft to work with.

 Use a very thin metal spatula to pick up the cookies if you need to. For this recipe, I rolled out my dough on the cling wrap (weird I know!). But I found this very helpful in picking up the cookies and transferring them onto the baking tray.

I recommend making each tray an equal amount of top and bottom of the cookie sandwich. This means, half normal cookies, and half with the center cut out. This way you avoid stressing about whether you have an even amount of each cookie. 

Looking for other recipes? Maybe try the ones below:

Chunky Chocolate Cookies

Vanilice (Serbian Jam Cookies)

Chocolate Snowball Cookies

If you try these Nutty Linzer Cookies, leave a comment below or a rating & let me know what you think! You can also tag me over on Instagram @bitemykitchen I would love to see how these turn out for you.