Linzer Augen

Linzer Augen are almond sugar cookie sandwiches with a simple fruit preserve filling, commonly raspberry or apricot, though this year we tried lingonberry to great effect, and we have used barberry in the past. These are probably the most labor intensive cookies we make for Christmas, as each one is actually a sandwich composed of two discrete cookies, each of which needs to be rolled and cut separately. However, they're just too pretty and too delicious not to make them. The name comes from Linz, a city in northern Austria where these cookies ostensibly originate. The word augen is German for "eyes", representative of the appearance of the cookies, thanks to a hole punched through the top cookie of the sandwich to give a tiny window to the fruit filling underneath.

Linzer Augen

Ingredients

• 14 tbsp (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup ground blanched almonds
• 2 cups flour
• 1 egg
• fruit preserves, preferably smooth without large pieces

Cooking Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter with an electric mixer, then add the sugar, mixing until quite light. (The photos here show a double batch. Don't panic when your bowl looks empty.)
   
2. Add the ground almonds and flour, mixing with a spoon or spatula. You'll probably want to add these a bit at a time, as the dough will become stiffer and harder work. Just before your spatula breaks, it may be a good time to begin working the dough by hand. If your spatula does break, it's definitely time.
   
   
   
   
3. Turn the dough out onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Cut the dough in half, and wrap each half in its own piece of plastic. Flatten the dough with a rolling pin while wrapped, and chill the flattened dough slabs for about an hour. The reason for halving the dough is to be able to roll and cut one while the other bakes.
   
4. Remove a slab of dough from the fridge, and allow it to soften for a few minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. While still between plastic sheets, roll the dough to about a quarter inch thickness. Using a round cookie cutter about two inches in diameter, begin cutting out rounds and placing them on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.
   
5. For half of these rounds, get a second cookie cutter, less than an inch across preferably, and cut out a hole from the middle - these are the cookie tops. Some stores sell cookie cutters with removable middle cutters to do this in one step.
   
6. Beat the egg together with a pinch of salt to make an egg wash, and lightly brush each cookie with it. Place them in the oven, middle and upper racks, for about 10 to 12 minutes - they will still be quite pale when they are done. Cool these on racks.
   
7. When they have cooled, assemble the sandwiches by placing a small amount of fruit preserve on a cookie bottom, and lightly pressing one of the hole-punched top cookies on top. The hole affords you a view to the fruit preserves inside.