Lemon Curd Linzer Sandwich Cookies from Pretty Life Girls

Lemon Curd Linzer Sandwich Cookies - made dough December 2, 2023 from The Pretty Life Girls

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar plus more for topping cookies

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons lemon curd

1. Combine butter, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, vanilla extract and salt in a bowl; beat at medium speed until creamy and well combined.
2. Add flour, mixing at low speed until combined.
3. Divide dough in half and shape each half into a ball; flatten slightly into thick disc. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Roll out dough between two large sheets of parchment paper to 1/4-inch thickness. Emboss with embossed rolling pin or cookie stamps and cut with 2-inch cookie cutters. Cut out center from half the cookies using a smaller decorative cookie cutter.
6. Evenly space cookies on prepared baking sheets, 1 inch apart. Bake 7-9 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool 1 minute on baking sheets before transferring cookies to wire rack to cool completely.
7. Place cooled cookies with center cut-outs onto parchment paper; sprinkle with powdered sugar.
8. Spread bottom-side of cookies without the cutouts with 1/4 teaspoon lemon curd. Top with center cutout cookie, powdered sugar-side up.

I took these cookies to a holiday cookie exchange party earlier this month and they seemed to be a hit. Can you believe that I've never been to a cookie swap? Back in the Bay Area, most of my friends weren't bakers so I was the one supplying baked goods. When I moved to Nevada, well, I didn't have local friends, lol.

But I joined a local women's group that plans various activities so people could meet in person and form connections. I have to admit, after several years of Covid-quarantine/isolation, it's been nice to socialize. And I say that as an introvert.

Just like with the baking meetups I've hosted at my house, the party gave me a chance to try out a recipe I normally wouldn't bake since I can't send these in my military care packages for my volunteer work with Soldiers Angels. The filling and the delicacy of the cookies would never survive overseas or military mail.

A slight digression before I go into the recipe. One of the challenges I have with my cookie stamps and cutters is some of them, primarily the Anis Paradeis ones, come with specialized cutters that fit the stamped impressions. Try keeping them together without getting them mixed up with other stamps? A bit tricky. Until now. Thanks to other cookie stampers, I discovered using these photo storage containers were perfect. They're the perfect size in length, width and depth to hold most of my cookie stamps that don't have handles. And an easy way to keep everything organized.

Back to the cookies. Although they're called "linzer" cookies, a true linzer cookie typically has ground hazelnuts in the dough and are filled with some kind of jam, usually raspberry. Plus the tops are covered in powdered sugar before sandwiching the jam.

As you can see, I broke all those rules. Since I had stamped them, I didn't want to hide the impressions by sprinkling powdered sugar over them. I also don't like raspberry jam or any kind of jam or jelly which is why I deliberately picked this recipe that uses lemon curd. Lemon curd is supposedly easy to make but I didn't have time to make it from scratch so I went with the ready made stuff in a jar. Which turned out to taste pretty good. As was the whole cookie. The cookies themselves are light in texture and a little crisp, a perfect foil for the tart lemon curd. They're not too sweet either so they also don't clash with the curd. I liked these cookies. They took more time to make but were worth the effort.