Eggless Linzer Cookies

I bought the linzer cookie cutter set an year before, thinking I will use it sometime. However it did not happen. Recently, I saw these cookies posted by Nitha on the weekly hosted event Love2Bake by Spicy Treats, and bookmarked the recipe. I showed my daughter the picture of these cookies, and she was very excited to bake and decorate these cookies. I prepared the dough and kept in the fridge overnight , and baked them the next day with my daughter. My kid enjoyed cutting these cookies, and liked to decorate these with jam, and icing sugar. Hope you get to enjoy these too!

I adapted the recipe from  Nitha Kitchen and  Cook's Hideout. Please refer to Nitha's blog for detailed step by step pictures.

Ingredients
All Purpose Flour – 1 cup + 2 tbsp (I used whole Wheat Pastry Flour)
Ground Almonds – 1/2 cup (Used store bought Almond meal)
Sugar – 1/4 cup
Salt – 1/8 tsp
Ground Cloves – 1/8 tsp
Ground Cinnamon – 1/4 tsp
Unsalted Butter – 8 tbsp, (1 stick)Softened at room temperature
Lemon zest or Lemon extract- 1/4 tsp
Orange zest or Orange extract -1/4 tsp
Vanilla Essence –1/2 tsp
Strawberry Jam or any other fruit preserve as required
Powdered Sugar – 1 tsp + extra for dusting

Method
Combine the flours, sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, zest, and vanilla essence in a stand mixer or by hand. Add the butter, and mix well until the dough comes together. Don't over do the kneading. Divide the dough in half, then wrap each half in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour for easy rolling. I refrigerated the dough overnight. Line a baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll the dough 1/8" thick. Cut the shapes using the Linzer cutters. Bake at 325 F for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Remove the cookies onto a cooling rack and let cool completely before. Spread the solid cookie with the filling and place the cutout cookie on top of the filled cookie.  Note that filling/preserves makes the cookie gain the moisture.  I did not fill on the cookies with preserve. Therefore, I stored some of the cookies in air tight container, and took out to decorated as need basis.

Sending these cookies to Sangee's weekly Monday event  Love2Bake.