- Hey guys, today I'm gonna share with you
a terrific recipe for Valentine's Day
that's perfect for gifting.
So if you have a special Valentine
that you wanna bring a sweet treat to,
whether that be a boyfriend, girlfriend,
or a teacher, or really anybody you love,
a linzer heart cookie is a great idea.
They're also really simple to make too,
and most of it can be made in advance.
So let me show you how to make them.
Alright, so the first thing we're gonna do
is beat up a cup of butter in an electric mixer.
Now you're basically just looking for that butter
to become pale in color,
and basically double the volume.
At that point we're going to add the sugar.
So for these cookies I really like to use powdered sugar,
or confectioners sugar as you may know it,
because it's a lighter sugar
and will incorporate a bit better into the butter.
Because this is a sandwiched cookie
where you're dealing with two cookies,
you wanna make sure that those cookies
are nice and light, and kind of melt in your mouth.
Otherwise it can be a bit heavy.
You wanna just add it slowly and in stages
because it is pretty dusty,
and if you put the whole thing in there
you're gonna make a big cloudy mess.
So just go ahead and take it in probably thirds.
And then you're just gonna beat that up
until it's nice and incorporated.
At that point we're going to add one egg and one egg yolk.
The egg yolk is just gonna create a really nice
rich flavor to our cookie.
At this stage I also like to add two teaspoons
of almond extract.
You'll find it'll get a really nice subtle
almond flavor to these cookies,
which I think is such a great flavor combination
with the raspberry jam.
Then we're gonna prepare our dry ingredients.
So in a small bowl you're going to add
one and a half cups of almond meal.
Now almond meal or almond flour
is essentially just ground almonds,
so if you can't find it,
I'll put some information in the description
on how you can actually make your own,
but I find, especially if you live in the states,
you can find it easily at Trader Joe's.
And it's such a time saver.
But in fact you should know that it's never
near the baking aisle or near the flours,
it's always in the nut section.
So you can go and find it there
and you 'll find a big bag of it.
It's great.
Then to that we're also going to add
two cups of all-purpose flour,
half a teaspoon of salt,
and a quarter teaspoon of baking powder.
Go ahead and just whisk that up until it's all combined,
and then we are going to add this flour mixture
to our butter mixture just in thirds,
beating in between each addition
until it's nice and combined.
Then we're gonna remove our dough from the bowl
and we're going to separate it into two mounds
and place it on some wax paper.
Then you can flatten it into some discs
and wrap it up.
And we do need to refrigerate this dough
for at least two hours.
Overnight is even better.
Just because it's gonna be so much easier
for us to roll out and cut out our little cookies.
So you do wanna plan ahead and make sure
that you refrigerate it in advance.
Now to make our cookies,
it does make it a bit easier if you have
a linzer cookie cutter.
So you can usually find these at your kitchen stores,
or I've also put a link in the description
to where you can find them online.
And if you like to make these kinds of sandwich cookies,
they are a great investment
because they usually come with a base
and several little inserts
that you can swap out to make different cutouts.
So we're gonna be using the heart cutout
to make our heart shaped cookie.
So we're gonna take our first batch of dough,
roll it out on a floured surface
just to about an eighth of an inch thick.
And then we're gonna cut out all of the bottoms.
And you'll see it really helps
when the dough is nice and cold
because it will help us get a nice clean cut.
And then once you've done about 12 bottoms
you can go ahead and just pop that in the refrigerator
while you prepare the tops.
I find if the dough becomes too warm
it begins to lose its shape as it starts to bake.
So it's better that the dough is nice and cold.
So at this point we're gonna take the heart insert
to our cookie cutter.
We're gonna insert it in the center
and then we're gonna cut out all the tops.
Then you'll see it'll have a beautiful
little heart in the center.
So you can go ahead and transfer that
to a parchment lined cookie sheet as well.
And then take the bottoms,
pop those in the oven,
and we're gonna bake at 350 Fahrenheit
for just 10 minutes.
You'll know when they're done
when they start to just rise up a little bit
and become puffed and look like they're set.
You actually don't want to take them all the way
where they begin to get golden brown
because then they'll just get a little too crumbly on you.
So just go ahead and take them out.
And what we're gonna do is allow them to cool
on the cookie sheet.
And the benefit of allowing the cookies
to kind of continue to cook this way
is that the cookies will firm up due to the heat
of the cookie sheet, but they won't become extra brown
as they would if we'd left them in the oven.
Then we're gonna pop the tops in the oven
at 350 for just nine minutes.
They take less time to bake
because they don't have as much surface area as the bottoms
because we've done the cutout.
So they're a little bit quicker to bake.
And then we're gonna allow them to cool the same way,
just on our cookie sheet.
And this whole stage can be done the day before.
So all you have to do is just lightly cover them
with foil and allow them to just stay
on your counter tops,
and they will be all ready to go the next day.
Then to assemble, here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna dust all the cookies lightly
with some powdered sugar.
Then we are going to transfer some raspberry jam
into a pastry bag.
I find that it's really a lot easier to work with the jam
when it's in a pastry bag
'cause you'll get a lot more precision that way.
But you could just spoon it out too
if you didn't have a pastry bag.
And then we are going to take the raspberry jam
and just create a little dollop in the center
of each bottom.
Now the cookies are ready for their tops.
So we're gonna sandwich them all.
And then you'll start to see that beautiful
raspberry jam come through the center of that heart cutout.
You could take your cookies and place them on a cookie plate
or you could package them up in a decorative tin.
I find that these are such charming cookies,
especially around Valentine's Day.
They're not that hard to make
and they are so delicious.
The combination of that crumbly cookie
with that faint almond flavor
mixed with the raspberry jam
is just the perfect little treat
to enjoy on Valentine's Day.
I hope you give this to somebody special
and catch their attention with these.
And I will see you next week
for another easy recipe.
Until then, bye.
♫ Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme that swing
♫ Gimme that swing
♫ Gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme that swing
♫ Gimme that swing
♫ My heart is giving you love
♫ Try not to need it so much
♫ Say what you say or do what you do
♫ Won't you be my lover
♫ Mean what I say and I'll make you pay
♫ But you better run for cover ♫