Friday, August 08, 2014

Chocolate Jam Sandwich Cookies

Here is the recipe from yesterday's cookies. It is incredibly quick and easy, and the dough need not be chilled before rolling (unless your kitchen is really hot), so there is no advance prep work required!

Linzer Cookie Dough
1/2 cup butter or hard margarine, softened
2 Tablespoons granulated (white) sugar
2 Tablespoons packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup golden corn syrup
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
jam or jelly of your choice 
icing sugar or chocolate to decorate

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease or line a cookie sheet. 
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. beat in syrup, egg, and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Roll dough out about 1/4 inch thick on a lightly floured surface and cut with a floured cutter into desired shapes. If you are doing different shapes, ensure there is a top and bottom for each cookie, and cut a small hole somewhere in the top shape for the jam to show through.
Place the bottom cookies, a few centimeters apart on the prepared cookie sheet. Spread with the jam of your choice (I used strawberry), using only about a 1/2 teaspoon for each cookie and being sure not to spread right to the edges of the cookies. Place the top cookie on top. Bake for about 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned (check the bottoms). Transfer cookies to cool. 
Alternatively, cookies could be sandwiched together with jam after baking, however this can be messier and I think they stay together better if the jam is placed on the raw dough and sandwiched together. I also prefer the jam to be baked. 
Once cookies are cooled or nearly cooled, they can be decorated with a dusting of icing sugar, or drizzled with melted chocolate. I melted a handful of semisweet chocolate chips and used a fork to drizzle the chocolate horizontally over the cookies. 

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