powdered sugar

Nutella Linzer Cookies

February 13, 2018

I have always had a special interest in Linzer cookies. They are, obviously, Linzer. I am and Lindsey.

You get it (right?).

But I rarely ever make them (I just eat them). Which is a crying shame because they are beautiful, delicious, and fun to make! I love the little window in the sugar-coated top cookie to let the delicious filling peak out. That filling is typically raspberry jam.

Now, I love some good raspberry jam as much as the next girl, but you know what would be better?

Nutella.

And these Nutella Linzer cookies are absolutely perfect for Valentine’s Day! They have everything you need! A little sugar, a little chocolate, a heart cut out. Do you need anything else?

How to Make Them

The cookies that make up the Linzer are traditionally made with almond meal. However, using pure almond meal would result in a very crumbly and hard cookie. These cookies are a mix of my favorite sugar cookie and an almond cookie so that they still have that great almond flavor and texture, but aren’t overly crumbly or tough.

After the dough has been mixed, dump it out onto a sheet of plastic wrap and wrap it up into a ball. Chill in the freezer for 20 minutes or until it’s slightly firm. This will help you roll it out into a nice even sheet.

Since the dough is rather soft, it would also help to chill the dough after it’s been rolled out which will help create evenly shaped cookies (which is pretty important when you are making cookie sandwiches).

I like to roll my dough out on a sheet of parchment then transfer the parchment to a baking sheet, then the baking sheet to the fridge.

After a few minutes, the dough should be firm enough to cut out into shape.

Cut out circles (or whatever shape you like), then cut out the window in every other cookie. In this case, I used a small heart cookie cutter.

Once the cookies come out of the oven and had had a chance to cool, match them up to find a tip and a bottom that are of similar size.

Dust confectioners sugar over the top cookie and spread the Nutella over the underside side of the bottom cookie.

Finally, reunite the top cookies with the bottom cookies to create delicious Nutella Linzer cookies.

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Mexican Wedding Cookies

May 4, 2017

These little sugar coated Mexican Wedding cookies may be more closely associated with Christmas, but cookies are pretty much good year-round in my book! Especially these cookies. They are like little pecan packed shortbread cookies dusted in powdered sugar. Yum, right?!

I’m not sure what took me so long to make Mexican Wedding Cookies. They are so much easier to make than I originally thought. Like I said above, they are almost identical to a shortbread recipe – butter, sugar, and flour – with just the added ingredient if pecans.

First cream together butter, sugar, and vanilla. Then mix in the flour until you have a pretty dry dough. Something that looks kinda dry, but when pressed together forms a ball.

Next add in the nuts. You can use either walnuts or pecans. I actually used a mix of both because I was just short of pecans.

I ground up my nuts into a course meal, where some of the nuts were finely ground, and some were still in chunk form. I also measured my nuts after they were ground. So I had one and a half cups of ground nuts, not one and a half cups of whole nuts.

Next, because this dough is fairly dry, I recommend that you let it chill for at least 30 minutes so that all the moisture from the butter gets soaked into the flour and all the flavors meld together.

It will also be a bit easier to roll into balls once its chilled. I used my little cookie scooper to get evenly sized cookies.

Finally, its time to roll them in some sugar! This part is fun! Also, very messy. Your kitchen will look a little questionable when all is said and done.

I dropped let my cookies cool off a bit before I dropped them into the powdered sugar. The hot cookies will form a gummy sugary coating. I wanted a light powdery coating, so I let them cool until they were warm, but not to hot to handle.

And if thats not enough sugar for you, you can sprinkle even more on top. As you can see, that’s what I did. I love me some sugar.

But don’t worry about these being overly sweet. They are perfectly sweet. The cookies themselves actually have very little sugar in them. You bite in and have the initial taste of sugar, but the interior cookie is nutty and buttery!

Plus they are just so pretty! It’s like they are the perfect cookie for a wedding. Who knew?

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