TWD: I heart Linzer Sables

When I first read that the Tuesdays With Dorie baking schedule would be flexible for the month of December, I didn’t think much of it. After all, I had been diligently concocting every treat proffered the whole four weeks I had been a member of TWD. Then Thanksgiving happened and my normal culinary enthusiasm was nowhere to be found. I was then grateful for the relaxed schedule, since I still wanted to bake the Linzer Sables and thought Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies would best “saved” until closer to Christmas.



I was pleased to find a Linzer cookie cutter for only $6 at Sur la Table. The cut-out has a heart, which would be better suited for Valentine’s, but for $6 you can’t be too particular. I wasn’t so pleased with the actual cutter. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say I had to learn to be smarter than the cookie cutter. That aside, making the Linzer Sables was a rewarding experience, as the recipe does deliver a very tasty and quite impressive looking cookie.



The recipe says you can use almonds, walnuts, or hazelnuts for the cookie dough. Hazelnuts sounded tempting, but I had a bag of almonds on hand, so I went ahead and used those. I filled the cookies with the traditional raspberry jam, though I was too lazy to heat it with water as suggested—they still tasted great!



This recipe rated an 8 for D and a 5 for E, giving them an EDR of 1.6. As I have explained before, the EDR system is subjective, depending on factors such as mood or tiredness. This was definitely a case where the E got bumped up due to my frustration with the cookie cutter and overall time in the kitchen last weekend. Thanks to Dennis from Living the Life for picking such a gem! You can find the recipe on his site and you can go to the TWD blogroll to see the other bakers’ take on Linzer Sables, though many may be on to Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies by now.