Valentine Linzer Cookies

For the almonds:
Preheat the oven to 250 F. Bring a saucepan of water to a boil. Add the almonds and boil for 2 minutes. Drain and spray with cold water. Peel the skins from the almonds. This sounds daunting but is really easy after they have been boiled. I usually just pinch one end, which forces the almond out the other.

Place the almonds on a cookie sheet, in a single layer, and bake for 10 minutes (just enough to dry out). Remove from heat and pour into the bowl of a food processor. Process until finely ground. Set aside.

For the cookies:
Cream the butter in a mixing bowl using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment. (I don’t have a paddle attachment so I use the basic mixer attachment that came with my stand mixer, and it works
fine. You could even use a whisk.)

Add the sugar and continue creaming. Add the egg, lemon zest, and vanilla and mix. Mix in the ground nuts.

Sift the dry ingredients (flour through cinnamon) into a bowl then add it into the mixer bowl and blend.

Form the dough into disks and wrap until you are ready to roll them out. (SimplyRecipes suggests chilling the discs at this point but I have had better luck skipping this chilling step and only doing the freezer one below.)

Roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment paper to 1/4 – 1/8-inch thickness. (I’ve done both and actually prefer the 1/4″ because I like a less crisp cookie. The key is to make sure you stick with one thickness for all the cookies.) Put the rolled dough (still between the parchment paper) on a baking sheet and put it in the freezer for 5-10 minutes to firm up before cutting.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Cut out the solid/base cookie shapes until you are left with scraps, then re-roll the scraps and repeat. (With the last little bits, I like to roll out strips and sprinkle with a good layer of cinnamon and sugar, then roll up and cook with the cookies.)

Divide the cookies in half and cut smaller hearts out of the center of half of them. (You can cook these centers or roll up the dough for something else.) Place the cookies onto baking sheets leaving at least an inch between them.

Bake for 12 minutes or until edges turn golden. I needed about 15 for my 1/4″ thick cookies. Place cookies on a wire rack to cool.

Heat the preserves for about 20 seconds and spread the solid hearts with a layer of the hot preserves. Place the top layer cookie over the bottom, pressing down lightly. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, then fill the holes with more preserves. Let the preserves set slightly before serving.

Recipe adapted from simplyrecipes.com.