Linzer Cookies

My little guy had a school bake sale recently.  Ordinarily, I would’ve cringed at the mere mention of such a thing.  Luckily for us, Munsur’s teachers are aware of his allergies and do their best to accommodate his special diet by keeping me up to date on bake sales, in-class baking and the like, so that I can provide them with dairy-free recipes.

I wanted to make a special treat for this bake sale, so I’d decided to make Linzer cookies – easiest dough to make; very delicate to handle! So these are definitely a labour of love, but so very worth it!

Next time you’re in the mood for making cookies, give this recipe a try!

Linzer Cookies     Yields: 28 Linzers

1 1/2C Coconut oil

1C Sugar

1tsp Vanilla extract

3C All purpose flour

Pinch of salt – about 1/8tsp

1 Jar Raspberry/Strawberry/Blueberry Jam (use whatever you have in the fridge that you love!)

1/2C Icing sugar – for dusting tops

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Begin by preheating oven to 350°F.

Add coconut oil and sugar in a stand mixer (or a bowl), and mix until combined.  Then, add vanilla.

In a medium bowl, sift the flour and add the salt.  Add one cup of flour at a time to the butter mixture, and mix well.

Put the dough onto a slightly floured surface.  Shape into two discs, and wrap in plastic wrap.

Normally at this point, you would’ve had to chill the dough for up to 2 hours in the fridge! But unlike traditional dairy butter, coconut oil melts at a temperature of 24°C; making it ideal, in my opinion, for this recipe since it means that you’ll only need to chill this dough for 5 minutes! Talk about a positive!

Once chilled, take out from the fridge and remove the plastic wrap.  You’ll want to work somewhat quickly with this dough so that it remains slightly crumbly but soft at the same time.

Next, working with a disc at a time, massage the dough and use a rolling pin (I borrowed my son’s!) to roll and get it ready to cut. Use one disc for making your tops, and the other disc for your bottoms.

Now the fun part…start cutting! If you don’t have a fluted cookie cutter or a traditional Linzer cutter, use regular cookie cutters you have at home.

Don’t be discouraged if the dough breaks, it’s supposed to be delicate! Even long-time bakers mess it up sometimes ;). Just massage it into a ball and roll it with the rolling pin.

Tip: if you have an offset spatula, use it to help remove the cookies and place on the baking sheet.

Repeat this process until all of the dough’s used up and the shapes are ready to be baked.  Place the cookies on parchment paper on a baking sheet.

Place in the oven for 10 minutes – until the cookies are slightly blushed. Remove from the oven and onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Once cooled, apply the jam. Spread the jam(s) of your choice on the inside of the ‘bottom’ cookies; about a teaspoon per cookie.

Take a ‘top’ cookie and very gently press onto the ‘bottom’ cookie so that the jam peeks through the centre.  Repeat this process until you’ve applied jam to all the cookie bottoms and matched them with the cookie tops.

Finally, put icing sugar in a sifter/sieve, and dust the cookies for that extra touch of amazingness!

Who says dairy-free equals boring?!  Nothing beats homemade, and now you know how to make Linzer cookies!  Bon appétit! xo