Jam Cookies

 

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Servings: Makes about 3 dozen

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups flour (plus extra for rolling out dough)
 
3/4 cup granulated sugar
 
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
 
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
 
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
 
1 cup hazelnuts, roasted and skinned*
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
 
2 large egg yolks
 
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
 
confectioners’ sugar for dusting
 
3/4 cup desired filling. Can use jam, preserves or melted semisweet chocolate
 
Dough can be refigerated overnight or frozen up to a month.
 
* Hazelnut skins are bitter.  More about how to skin hazelnuts.

Steps

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, packing powder, sale and cinnamon. In a food processor or blender, pulse hazelnuts with 1/4 cup flour mixture until finely ground.  Add remaining flour mixture and process to combine. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add egg yolks and vanilla and pulse until dough just comes together. Form dough into two disks. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 F, with racks in upper and lower thirds. Working with one disk at a time, roll out dough between floured parchment paper to 1/8″ thickness. Stack dough in parchment on a baking sheet; refrigerate until firm, 30 minutes.
With a lightly floured linzer cookie cutter, cut out the dough. (If dough becomes too soft, refrigerate a few minutes and re-roll scraps if desired.)
Place cookies 1 inch apart on two parchment-lined cookie sheets. With the smaller side of the cutter, cut out dough in centers of half of the cookies.
Bake until cookies begin to brown at edges, 10-12 minutes and rotate sheets halfway through baking. If desired, bake small cut-outs separately, 5-7 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks and let cook completely.
Dough can be refrigerated overnight or frozen up to 1 month and thawed in refrigerator. Let sit at room temperature until soft enough to roll.