I was tasked with bringing dessert for Christmas dinner.  I wanted to do something using my homemade jams and jellies.  When I happened upon a recipe for traditional Linzer cookies that included almonds in the dough, I knew I’d found my dessert.

This recipe is fairly involved, taking several hours to prepare, but the result is absolutely delicious.  Traditionally, these Austrian Christmas cookies are filled with raspberry preserves.  I filled mine with several varieties of my homemade jam – personalize them however you like!

For the full recipe I used, visit American Heritage Cooking.

Here’s the basics:

Toast your almonds in the oven until lightly browned. Your kitchen will smell amazing at this point!

The almond get ground into almond flour with a bit of brown sugar.

Be sure to pulse your food processor.  If you just turn it on and mix, you will probably end up with almond butter.  If you do this on accident, try using it as a filling for a few sandwich cookies.  I bet that would be wonderful!  It should look like this when ground up…

You do the usual mix up the dry ingredients (almonds, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, salt & cinnamon), mix up the wet (butter, egg & vanilla) then combine.  Mix until just combined.

The dough needs to be refrigerated for a couple hours to be workable.  While I waited for the dough to cool, I made my Hambone & Veggie Soup.

After a few hours, roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut out your cookies.  I used a 3″ biscuit cutter for the bottoms and the 1″ cap off of a paint bottle to cut out the centers.  A little ghetto, I know, but it got the job done!

Be sure to cut out equal numbers of tops and bottoms and put them on separate cookie sheets to bake.  The tops will bake about 8 minutes, while the bottoms need closer to 10.

When they come out, let them cool for a few minutes.

Then you’re ready to dust the tops with powdered sugar and spread jam on the bottoms.

I used these three homemade jams for my cookies: Raspberry Vanilla, Michigan Wild Apple and Raspberry and Mulberry.  You don’t need much, a small spoonful is plenty.

Finally, gently set a top on each bottom and you’re done!

Store in a sealed container at room temp for up to 5 days, though I doubt they’ll last that long.