Sweet and simple.
This shortbread linzer cookies recipe makes a batch of buttery, tender cookies sandwiched with your favorite jam. Get the recipe and pro tips for linzer cookie perfection.
Meet This Shortbread Linzer Cookie Recipe
These buttery shortbreadLinzer cookies are a gorgeous cookies that taste great. These jammy cut-out linzer sugar cookies are fun, easy to make, and look fantastic. This recipe, adapted from Dorrie Greenspan’s recipe for sugar cookies, is essential for any home baker.
All About This Shortbread Linzer Cookies Recipe
Traditional linzer cookies are a nut cookie dough, usually made of ground almonds or hazelnuts. This tastes very good, but requires grinding nuts. On top of that, dough containing ground nuts tends to have a higher fat ratio, which can make the dough harder to work with because it is less firm at room temperature.
Linzer cookies originate in Austria, and are bite-sized takeoffs of the traditional linzer torte, a jam-filled nut pastry tart with a lattice crust.
How to Make These Shortbread Linzer Cookies
This recipe for shortbread linzer cookies takes a slightly different approach to the traditional linzer cookie. Instead of a ground nut cookie dough, these cookies rely on a simple sugar cookie dough. It has a clean, buttery-sweet taste which can also be used for plain sugar cookie cutouts if you do not want to make linzers.
Here are some pro tips for linzer sugar cookie cut-out success:
- Chill the dough well. Roll it out into a thin disk, wrap, and chill for at least an hour. This will allow you to get clean, easy cuts with your cutters.
- Work with warm jam. It is easier to spread.
- Insider pastry school tip: Do the confectioner’s sugar last, after you have filled and sandwiched the cookies. The confectioner’s sugar will dissolve on the jam, and provide a clear protective sheen to the jam to make it less messy.
Love this linzer recipe? More sweet cookie recipes you’ll love:
Shortbread Linzer Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 stick plus 2 tablespoons (10 tablespoons total) unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- Zest of 1 lemon, optional
- 1/2 cup strawberry or raspberry jam
- Confectioner's sugar, for dusting
Instructions
- In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg, egg yolk, salt, vanilla, and lemon zest (if using). Continue to beat until fluffy and well mixed. Scrape the bowl to make sure everything is evenly incorporated.
- Add the flour and baking powder and mix on low just until fully incorporated.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly-floured surface and divide into two balls. Press or roll each ball of cookie dough into a flattened round about 1/2" thick, lightly dusting with flour as needed. Wrap each flattened round in plastic wrap and chill fully.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line or grease two cookie sheets. Working with one flattened cookie dough at a time to keep the other chilled, unwrap the cookie dough and lightly flour both sides. Roll the dough to 1/8" thick. Use cookie cutters to cut shapes, then use a smaller cutter to cut a window in half the cookies. (These will be the top halves of the cookies.)
- Transfer the cookies to the baking sheet, leaving 1/2" of space between each. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, or until lightly brown on the bottom. Let cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a rack to cool fully.
- While the first round of cookies are baking, gather the cookie dough scraps into a ball. Re-roll into a flat round. Cover and chill. Remove the second chilled cookie dough from the fridge and make next round of cookies. Repeat until all the dough has been used.
- When the cookies are cool, warm the jam and stir with a spoon to loosen it to an easily spreadable consistency. Spread a small spoonful of jam over the bottoms of each cookie, leaving a border to allow spread. Top each jam-filled cookie with a linzer top.
- Dust with confectioner's sugar and serve.
7 comments
G.F.
Pretty and the shortbread was buttery and very good. Thanks for the clear instructions, too!
Ursula
Yum and so much fun to make. I used Nutella inside! Out of this world.
Lisa D’Abramo
O-M-G!!!!!!
I just made these and I ate 1/2, and my boyfriend ate the other (before heading off to a monthly dinner w/his brothers)!!!!!!
These are insanely good, and so festive !
I know they’re from a Valentine post, but they remind me of Christmas too!
Lisa thank you (and my dog Charlie is thanking you as he gets his 3rd walk today … lots of cookies to walk off!!!).
Your site makes our world kinder & sweeter
Thanks!
Unpeeled
Hello and thank you so much!!! I am glad you liked them, and you are right: They are very festive for the holidays and can easily be holiday cookies depending on what cutters you use. Yea! Thanks so much for this great comment.
D.F.R.
Perfection.
Paula Wallace
This is a great sugar cookie recipe. I did not make Linzer cookies, but used the dough for regular sugar cookies and it worked great. Thanks.
JB
Thanks for this charming cookie recipe and happy Valentine’s Day!!! These are sweet and good.