Cookie Recipe Swap!

One of the blogs I follow, ACU's Stiletto Shoes, and Pretty Pink Tutu's had a fantastic idea of doing an online cookie swap since it's not practical to have a real cookie swap over the internet. So post your recipe in a blog entry and leave me the link in the comment section (or if you don't have a blog, leave the recipe as a comment).

I made these cookies last year and they were a huge hit that everyone asked for the recipe, so here it is:

Linz Tarts

Ingredients:

* 2 sticks (1 cup) of soft, unsalted butter
* 2/3 (5 oz) cup of sugar
* 1 Tsp of grated lemon rind
* 1 Tbs vanilla extract
* 4 egg yolks
* 2 and 1/4 cups (18 oz) of all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup (6 oz) of raspberry, strawberry or red currant jelly

Icing:
* 1/4 (2 oz) of powdered sugar to sprinkle
OR
* 1 cup confectioners' sugar
* 2 teaspoons milk
* 2 teaspoons light corn syrup
* 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat the oven for 325 F
2. In a big bowl, mix in the butter, sugar, lemon grind, vanilla extract and egg yolks.
3. Slowly mix in the 1 and 3/4 cups of flour
4. Work the mixture into a dough and place it in the fridge for about 2 hours (or overnight)
5. Pull the dough out of the fridge and let it stand in the room temperature for a while until it is workable (about 1 hour)
6. The hardest part: Roll out the dough onto a floured surface until it is about 1/4 inch thick (coat the pin with flour as well; as you are rolling out the dough, keep sprinkling it with a little bit of flour at the time to prevent sticking)
7. Use cookie cutters (circle-shaped ones are the most authentic) to cut out the cookies and in half of them cut out a smaller circle in the center OR cut all dough into 2" squares (easiest) to fold into cookies later.
8. Transfer the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet (use spatula for the transfer if necessary) and spread with a 1/2 tsp of jelly onto whole cookies. (If using "squares", fold 2 ends of the square to the center of the cookie and secure with a dab of water.)
9. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes
10. Sprinkle the cookies with holes in the center with powdered sugar or drizzle with icing (for "squared" cookies, simply sprinkle powdered sugar or drizzle with icing over whole cookie)
11. Put powdered/iced cookies on top of the jellied cookies
12. And you are done! Now taste the heaven….


Some Important Tips:

- once the dough is rested enough to work with, move QUICKLY! The dough is made mostly out of butter so it basically starts to “melt away” if it gets too warm (i.e. it is impossible to cut out those cookie shapes).

- once in the oven, keep checking on the cookies - they burn quickly

- if you don’t have the smaller circle-shaped cookie cutter to make those little holes in the middle of a cookie, don’t worry about it; they taste great hole-less as well!

- if you find out that your dough has gotten too soft and it is hard for you to cut out those cookies, work the dough sheet into a ball again, put it in the fridge for about 30 minutes and start over

- rolling out the dough is the hardest part because it keeps sticking to things. I found that sprinkling a little bit of flour here and there and working it into the dough helps the consistency of it.