Traditional Linzer Christmas Cookies

Baking cookies at Christmas is like a national sport in my country. Housewives compete over who baked the most types and the most ridiculous amounts of each type. The Linzer cookies are something you always find on a Czech Christmas table. I would like to show you a traditional recipe which has been in my family for generations. Nowadays there are many modern recipes for these cookies to make the cookies instantly soft but the dough just doesn't taste well. With this recipe I guarantee that although you have to let the cookies rest, even the dough itself tastes really great.

- 500 g of all-purpose flour and a little for the table

- 240 g of powder sugar

- 240 g of unsalted butter

- 4 egg yolks

- 100 ml of fullfat milk

- aprox. 400 of 100% red or black currant marmelade - if you can't get your hands on currant marmelade, use any other but the Linzer cookies taste the best with currant marmelade because it's acid and contrasts nicely with the sweet dough

- cookie cutters - traditionally round (circle, flower etc.) but you can use any

- round cookie cutter diameter 1 cm

- baking paper and tray

- rolling pin

Combine the flour and sugar in a bowl, then add the egg yolks, milk and butter. The butter should be soft but don't melt it! Just leave it out of the fridge and at room temperature for some time. The consistency of the butter affects the texture of the dough. Also, you can use alternatives like vegetable fat but the cookies will loose their traditional buttery taste.

Knead the dough with your hands until you get absolutely smooth dough without any lumps.

Sprinkle your table with some flour and roll out the dough, the ideal thickness is somewhere around 5 mm or a little less. Cut out an even number of cookies and place them on the baking paper on the tray. Then using the small circular cutter, cut out small circles in the middle of half of your cookies.

Preheat the over on 170 °C and bake the cookies for 10 minutes or until they start turning golden. Take them out of the oven and let them cool completely.

Put some marmelade in the center of each cookie without a hole and then place another cookie WITH a hole on the marmelade and press a little with your fingers.

At this point, your cookies will alredy taste delicious but they will be a little hard. We make the cookies 2-4 weeks before Christmas and let them rest in a cardboard box covered with napkins. They soften nicely during this time.

Before you serve the cookies, sprinkle them with a little powder sugar.

Enjoy!