Happy almost Valentine’s Day to all! Most (single) people I know absolutely hate this holiday, but I’ve always found it to be rather fun! You get to wear red and pink, gift a flower or some chocolate to your friends (or significant other), and I personally see Valentine’s Day as a great excuse to make COOKIES!!! I went just a little bit crazy last year and made about a million Valentine’s Day cookies, so many in fact that I had to completely empty my fridge of all regular food in order to store the cookies in there. Unfortunately my friends weren’t able to eat all of the cookies so I spent the next week eating cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a good week to say the least.
I’ve been thinking about traditional Austrian Linzer cookies this year because I distinctly remember going to Au Bon Pain with my mom at this time last year and treating myself to a HUGE heart-shaped, raspberry filled Linzer cookie after a bad week. It was so good I can still taste it! So I decided that this year I wanted to make some of my own, but with a Greek twist obviously. You find almonds and apricots in a lot of Greek recipes so I figured I could incorporate those flavors into an otherwise traditional recipe. I like these cookies because they’re sweet but not too sweet, and they’re fun to make and sandwich together! Had a bunch of fun picking out which shapes to use. I wanted to get really creative but I settled on hearts, stars, and moons because they’re so pretty! I even found a really small funny shaped cookie cutter that I used for the heart cookies and only realized after the fact that it looked like a keyhole, so the heart cookies turned into “key to my heart” cookies. If that’s not Valentine’s themed I don’t know what is!
Anyway, I’m wishing everyone a pleasant and enjoyable rest of the week and weekend. Even if you don’t have an official “date” or “Valentine”, please use this time to show those around you how much you care for and appreciate them! Everyone needs a little love once in a while! Also, YOU SHOULD BAKE THESE COOKIES! They’re fun to make with kids too!
Natalia Alexander
Yields 25
Almond Cookies with Apricot Filling
1 hr, 30 Prep Time
10 minCook Time
1 hr, 40 Total Time
Save RecipeIngredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup/2 sticks or 200 grams of butter
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2/3 cups or 100 grams of finely ground almonds
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup apricot jam
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- Confectioner's/powdered sugar
- Plastic wrap
- Parchment paper
Instructions
- In a bowl combine the flour, almonds and cinnamon
- In a separate bowl mix together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy and add in the egg and vanilla extract
- Fold in the flour mixture until everything is incorporated
- Divide the dough into 2 disks, wrap in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 1 hour to harden the dough
- Preheat the oven to 350 F/170 C
- Place the first disk of dough onto a floured surface and roll it out with a rolling pin to make it flat
- Once it's flat cover the dough with a sheet of plastic wrap and keep rolling over it to make it thin. The plastic wrap prevents the rolling pin from sticking to the dough and you won't have to use as much flour when rolling the dough out
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper
- Cut the dough into desired shapes, using a smaller cookie cutter to add a hole in the middle of every other cookie. These will be the top cookies
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until light brown
- In the meantime roll out and cut the rest of the dough
- Mix the lemon juice into the apricot jam
- Let the baked cookies cool on the sheet for 2-3 minutes and use a spatula to transfer the bottom cookies onto your work surface
- Add a teaspoon of apricot jam onto each bottom cookie and spread thin
- Add another small dollop in the middle to come through the whole in the top cookie
- Leave the top cookies on the baking sheet and dust with powdered sugar placed in a sifter/sieve
- Sandwich the cookies together
- Enjoy!
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