Welcome back for Day 5 of The 12 Days of Cookies, and since it’s Saturday, it’s also PhotoHunt Day. The theme for the PhotoHunt this week, is “Curved.” I think you’ll agree that these Hazelnut Linzer cookies fit the bill!
In case you’re wondering what’s going on, I was invited to participate in a project to bake and blog about 12 cookies in 12 days (December 1-12), choosing from the 2008 Bon Appétit Holiday Cookie-a-Day collection. We were free to choose any 12 cookies from the 31 recipes in the collection, in any order and compare notes. You didn’t know I had it in me, did you? 
On with the cookies, and the PhotoHunt!
First the recipe, then my notes:
Hazelnut Linzer Cookies with Blackberry Jam
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar plus more for decorating
- 5 teaspoons (packed) finely grated orange peel
- 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
- 3 large egg yolks
- 1 1/4 cups hazelnuts, finely ground in processor (about 1 1/2 cups ground)
- Blackberry jam
Preparation
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Whisk first 5 ingredients in medium bowl to blend. Beat butter, 1 cup powdered sugar, and citrus peels in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in egg yolks. Beat in dry ingredients in 4 additions; beat in nuts. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap; chill at least 1 hour and up to 1 day.
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Preheat oven to 325°F. Line 2 large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll out half of dough on lightly floured surface to 1/8-inch thickness. Using 2-inch round cutter, cut out rounds. Using 3/4-inch round cutter, cut out center of half of rounds to make rings. Transfer rounds and rings to prepared sheets. Gather dough scraps; chill.
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Bake cookies until golden, reversing sheets after 10 minutes, about 22 minutes total. Cool completely on sheets. Repeat until all dough is used. DO AHEAD Store airtight at room temperature up to 2 days or freeze up to 2 weeks.
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Arrange cookie rings on work surface. Sift powdered sugar over. Spread 1 teaspoon jam on each cookie round. Press rings onto jam on rounds. DO AHEAD Can be assembled 1 day ahead. Store between sheets of waxed paper in airtight container at room temperature.
Notes:
If you’ve stopped by to see the first four installments of this series, you won’t be surprised to learn that here’s another really soft dough for a cut-out cookie. In fact, you’re probably pretty sick of reading me bitch about it. Fine. Not another word. You can’t say you weren’t warned. I’ll just say this: Keep the bench flour close. You’ll need it. And when cutting out the tops of the cookies, take them to the cookie sheet before cutting out the “Linzer eye” and cut it out in place.
This is a very tender cookie, a nice way of saying “more delicate than it looks.” It’s very crispy, but in my opinion, might have benefited from using the whole eggs, rather than just the yolks, to give them a little more backbone. As it were.
Yes, Linzers are traditionally round, although the “eye” can be virtually any shape. But, you know, I have the cutters in various sizes, so why not use them?
Also? I didn’t have any blackberry jam, so I substituted lingonberry. That should be the tip-off that we spent some time in the Ikea store awhile back.
Please visit my partners in holiday baking, below, and see what they’ve got in store for you. They’re not PhotoHunting, but their photos are guaranteed to make you drool! And don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the sixth installment!
Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes (honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)
Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Courtney of Coco Cooks
Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dog
RJ of Flamingo Musings (hey! that’s me!)
Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench
Tiffany of The Nesting Project
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14 Comments
Ut oh – this is the first blog I visited today and now I want those cookies!!!! YUM!!Our is up too – have a great weekend!Sniffie and the Florida Furkids
Your cookies look cute! Thanks for sharing
Yes they have curves
Love them….x
Those look like curvy deliousness. Perfect for the season and the theme.
They look fantastic and I am sure they taste heavenly!! wonderful take on the theme.Enjoy your weekend! curved
These sound so good with the blackberry, cinnamon, nutmeg and hazelnuts! I'm going to check out PhotoHunt!
Such beautiful cookies! I really liked your other cookies, too, especially the "spatial spaz" cookies, lol. I am that way, too.
Great post! Thanks for visiting my Photo Hunt today. Have a great weekend!
I admire you taking on the cut out cookies already! Some of us have been cut out slackers…=) (namely myself) They look wonderful.
Are we supposed to say "jinx" because we posted the same cookie with the same jam? And I came sooooo close to making hearts. Sounds like we're kindred spirits on the very, very, very, very soft dough. Did I say soft? Very. Clearly you were far more successful in the non-burning department. Nice job on these ; )
Your linzers look really nice. I like the hearts. I'm not making these, but your tips will be handy for some of the other cookies I'm planning to make.
Whoa!!! Those look delicious!!! Very clever take on the theme.
Yummy, yummy, yummy! My grandmother used to bake those cookies at Christmas. She varied the flavorful fillings, though. Such wonderful memories!!!I am much later than you in posting — a day late, in fact. http://blondesherry.blogspot.com/2009/12/ph-curved-day-late-and-dollar-short.html
delicious curvy looking cookies:) this looks like fun! Happy PH!
How weird you and Kelley used the Ligonberry. Do you think its the climate affecting your dough? I found the one I worked with today was soft.Love this heart shape. Save this for Valentines!