Valentines Linzer Cookies

Cream the butter and sugar for 5 minutes using an electric mixer, add the egg and vanilla essence and continue to whisk for 1 minute.

Using a wooden spoon, add in the flour, salt and ground almonds and stir until combined.

Place a sheet of parchment paper onto a baking tray and lightly brush with a little oil. With a spatula, scrape out the dough onto the oiled parchment and spread out onto the sheet (this dough is quiet soft to work with at this stage, hence we use this process). Place another sheet of oiled parchment paper on top(oiled side facing the dough.

At this stage the dough should be sandwiched between two sheets of oiled parchment on a flat baking tray!

Using a rolling pin, roll it across the sandwiched dough until approx. 3 mm in depth(quiet thin!). Place the dough in the freezer for approx. 1 hour to freeze. Meanwhile line two baking trays with parchment paper and preheat the oven to160c.

When the dough has frozen, remove it from the freezer and remove the parchment paper from both sides and place the frozen dough onto a lightly floured table. using a round scone cutter, cut out discs and place them onto the baking tray. while working quickly, cut out heart shapes using a small, pointed knife or a heart shaped cookie cutter from half of the discs.

Bring any scraps of dough together and re roll and continue until its all used up. Bake in the preheated oven for approx. 15 to 17 minutes until they start to turn a light brown at the edges. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

To assemble, place the cookies without heart cut-outs onto a plate and spread with a little raspberry jam. Shake icing sugar liberally over the cookies with hearts and then place these discs on top of the jammy discs to complete. Enjoy!

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I50g plain flour

40g ground almonds

Pinch salt

100g caster sugar

110g 115g butter (room temperature)

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla essence

Raspberry jam to fill the cookies.

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