This is an original Austrian Linzer Cookies recipe fully translated into English. Super soft and buttery cookies which melt in your mouth. Intense in flavor.
Linzer Cookies are soft, buttery, and full of flavor. These are traditional Christmas cookies here in Austria. You can get them everywhere, literally. It's funny that you can buy them all year long, not just at Christmas, though they are considered as Christmas cookies.
They are soft, buttery, and melt in your mouth. The dough contains almonds, lemon juice, and cinnamon, and the baked cookies are filled with apricot jam.
When it comes to apricot jam, here in Austria it is popular to add a splash of rum to the jam. If you want to do that as well, take ½ cup of jam and 1-2 tablespoon of rum depending on your preference.
Making the dough is as easy as making any regular cookie dough. Start with mixing the butter until it is creamy. Then add powdered sugar, followed by egg yolks. Stir in vanilla, salt, lemon juice, and cinnamon. In the end, add flour and almond flour.
For further processing, it is the easiest when you divide the dough into two and form into discs. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and let chill at least 1 hour or up to 2 days.
I highly recommend using a kitchen scale and weighing the ingredients. Cups differ in size, and too much of (almond) flour would dry them out. If you use cups instead of a kitchen scale, spoon and level the dry ingredients into the cup.
Another importance to say is that they don’t spread during baking. They stay in shape as you cut them. Use any cookie cutter you like.
Storage
They should be stored in an airtight container at room temperature. They stay fresh for up to one week.
Freezing
When freezing the unbaked dough, place the wrapped dough disks into a zip-lock bag and remove as much air as possible. Let it thaw in the fridge overnight. In a direct comparison between fresh and frozen dough, you will notice that the frozen dough leads to a tad drier cookies. It freezes well for up to 3 months.
You can also freeze leftovers. Therefore, wrap each cookie separately in plastic wrap tightly and put it into zip-lock bags. Remove as much air as possible from the bag. Freeze for up to 3 months. To thaw, unwrap, and let them sit on the counter for about 1-2 hours.
The softest and best Linzer Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter (226g)
- 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted (120g)
- 2 large egg yolks
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 vanilla bean* (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
- 2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice (30ml)
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour (300g)
- 1 cup almond flour (100g)
- ½ cup jam of your choice (160g)
- OPTIONAL powdered sugar for decoration
Video
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F / 175°C. Line 2 or 3 baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a whisk or paddle attachment, mix butter on medium speed until creamy for about 1-2 minutes. Add sugar and mix to combine. Stir in egg yolks until combined. Add salt, cinnamon, vanilla*, and lemon juice and mix just until incorporated. Stir in flour and almond flour on low speed to combine. Divide the dough into two and form into 1 inch thick discs. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill at least 1 hour or up to 2 days.
- On a lightly floured surface roll out dough discs into a ¼ inch thickness. Cut out cookies with a 2-inch cookie cutter of your choice and place on the prepared baking sheets with about 1-2 inch space in-between. You should end up with about 64 cookies. Bake one sheet after another for 9-10 minutes until they look dry on the surface. Allow cooling on the baking sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Fill cooled cookies with jam by spreading jam on the bottom of one cookie and place another on top. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired. Store in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week. Freeze for up to 3 months.
Patricia M
I wish I could post my picture here! I made them New Year’s Eve. It os the 8th day of Christmas, after all! They were delicious. I didn’t have any apricot preserves, but I used plum, peach and pineapple preserves. I would recommend 1/8” thickness and also mention to sprinkle powdered sugar on the top cookies alone before assembling. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Lanie
These cookies are delicious! The recipe is perfect! Everyone loved the cookies! The only thing I would do differently next time is perhaps add a couple of stops of almond extract.
Sonia
Hi Sabine! Thank you for the recipe. Just baked these delicious cookies for Santa! Loved the hint of lemon in them. They came out perfect!
Ally Heinz
Delicious recipe!! I have celiac disease, so I subbed the flour with gluten free flour, and would never know these weren't the real deal! I used apricot, strawberry and raspberry jams, and my family loved them! I used 3/4 C of sugar (since I don't like my sweets too sweet), and found these were still deliciously sweet! Only complaint is that the first step is to preheat the oven, which I did, even though the cookies weren't able to bake for another 2 hours since the dough had to chill.
Sabine
Thank you so much for your feedback! I'm glad you like it. I will move the first step, thanks for letting me know!
Courtney Cole
These are very delicious, nice flavor. I halved the recipe because I'm on a diet. Haha. And I've never made a shortbread type cookies before. I think I may have been bit over 1/4" rolled because i got under 32 cut outs but that is fine. I've put raspberry jam on half. Am going to make fig jam for other half. Would make these again, they are so pretty.
Liz White
This got rave reviews from the recipients of my cookie boxes this Christmas. I will definitely make again, Thank you!
Lubomira
Do I have to use almond flour also?
Sabine
Yes, it is a key ingredient in these cookies. If you don't have almond flour, it's better to go with a regular sugar cookie recipe. Hope that helps!
Antonia
Hi, I made the dough yesterday and tried to roll it out today. What a disaster! The dough kept cracking and when I finally got a decent roll-out and tried cutting out the shapes, just soft mush! I don't know what went wrong. I followed your directions through to the end so I don't know why the dough was so soft. I felt so encouraged when I read other commenting that it was such an easy dough to work with. Any suggestions for me?
Thanks
Sabine
I'm sorry that this happened to you. I really have no idea what caused the problem on your end. It sounds like the amounts of the ingredients were off (wet to dry ingredients).
Donna
Hi Sabine - have you used cornstarch in Linzer Cookies? If so, how do I substitute in recipe provided. I like the melt in mouth texture this provides. I've made with ground walnuts but wanted to try with almonds.
Sabine
Hi Donna, I've never used cornstarch in these cookies. So, I have no recommendation for you, I'm sorry.
Steph
Divine! So happy I found this recipe. I had these while traveling in Europe and wanted to add them to Holiday cookie batch. I used Bobs Red Moll Almond flour and so mine had little brown specks in them. I didn’t mind that at all really. I overpacked the first batch and was worried that the cookies would be too dry for my pallet (yes, I know the traditional cookie is no supposed to be chewy). However, once I adjusted my baking time to 6 minutes (my oven is very hot) the cookies came out perfect! They were so amazing with the jam. I made a blueberry, raspberry and guava variety by using the different jams I had on hand. I
Microwaved the jam with a touch of water before putting it on the cookie and that made it easy to spread. Thank you very much for this recipe. Total keeper! Vielen dank!!!
MissRC
I can’t wait to try this recipe. Can I use a different flavor jam? Or does it need to be apricot?
Sabine
Apricot jam is the original jam used for these cookies but you can use any jam you like. I love strawberry jam for example.