Linzer Cookies

Linzer cookies are beautiful and delicious. My son and I have been making them for years. At Christmas, we fill them with different jams to make different colors, but at Valentines day, we use strawberry, raspberry or plum to fit the red heart theme. They don't last too long in our house.

1 cup softened butter

1 1/2 c sugar

2 eggs

3 cups flour

1 Tablespoon Vanilla extract

Your favorite flavor of jam or jelly

powdered sugar for dusting

2 cookie cutters (one that can fit inside the other.

Extra flour for dusting the counter

Rolling pen

Cookie pans

cooling racks

In a large mixing bowl add

1 cup softened butter

1 1/2 cup sugar

Cream until butter and sugar are well combined. The mixture should be nice and smooth.

Add eggs one at a time mixing well after each addition.

Measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour. Mix by hand until moist, then turn on the mixer. This step helps prevent the dreaded flour cloud, but if you are cooking with kids, they may find the flour cloud funny.

Measure 1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract and mix well

When the dough is mixed well, time to let it chill out for a bit. Place it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes while you prepare your work surface.

To prepare the surface, wipe the counters down and let them dry. You can't have anything sticky or the dough will stick when rolling. Have plenty of flour near by.

I also set out hot pads for the trays after they have been removed from the oven. Cooling racks for the cookies to sit on and spread the wonderful smell through the entire house, and a spatula.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. If you have a convection oven, make sure the racks are evenly spaced.

Take a manageable portion of dough (about a quarter of it) from the bowl. Place the rest back into the refrigerator to stay cool. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface. You want the cookies about 1/4 of an inch thick. You can have them slightly thinner, but you want a good sturdy cookie that won't break under the weight of the jelly.

Now the fun part. Take the large cutter and cut out solid pieces for the bottom. You will also want to cut out an equal number of tops by cutting the small shape out of the large shape.

Repeat adding dough from the fridge until all the dough is used up. When I can't get any more large cookies, I use the small cutters to just cut out fun shapes to use up the remainder of the dough.

Try to keep the bottoms and the tops on their own sheet to ensure even baking and browning.

Place in the preheated oven and bake 5-10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Remove the pan and let the cookies cool on the pan for about 2 minutes. Then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack.

Try to prevent sampling unless you eat one of each.

Take the bottom of the cookies and spread your favorite flavored jelly. Try not to lick your fingers between cookies.

Dust the tops with powdered sugar. There is no such thing as too much.

Place the tops on the jelly filled bottoms and enjoy.

You can keep in an airtight container for up to a week (If they last that long) or store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.