It is mid-December and the festive season is upon us. One nice tradition to commence or to continue with is your own favourite edible treat – either store bought or homemade!
Lots of outstanding pastry chefs in our “village” of Vancouver going back to Thomas Haas and his famous German Stollen or Thierry Busset’s “Buche de Noel”.
So many new pastry chefs in our town are producing innovative new desserts. Your scribe believes hopefully it must be the same where you live. Please post for us some of your fav holiday recommendations. We are fortunate in the Cross family to have enthusiastic and talented cook Joan Cross, my wife, who already this year has tackled her own Stollen recipe and a dark chocolate Yule log. Lucky us!
There are so many Christmnas cookie recipes out there but one of our annual special ones is “Linzer Trees”. They look beautiful, are appropriate for respecting nature and for the symbol of the Christmas tree.
Even better is that they taste fabulous. Maybe try a batch using Joan’s shared recipe:
LINZER TREES
1 1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup finely ground, roasted almonds
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup raspberry jam, preferably seedless
Preheat oven to 350F
Line baking sheets with parchment paper. In a stand mixer, cream butter & sugar on medium speed until smooth & light. In a separate bowl whisk the dry ingredients together & add slowly to the butter mixture.
Divide the dough into 3 balls, flatten them into disks, wrap in Saran wrap and refrigerate for about an hour.
Roll dough on lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch thick. Dust dough with flour if necessary to prevent sticking.
Using a Christmas tree cookie cutter, cut dough into the shapes. For half of the cookies, cut out small random circles (3-5).
You may use a small piping nozzle to make holes.
Bake 10-12 minutes until set but remaining pale. Melt the jam with 1 teaspoon icing sugar and boil for 1 minute. Cool slightly.
Lay out the cookies with no holes, right side down. Spread a scant 1 teaspoon of jam on these bottom cookies. Lay out the cookies with the holes right side up.
Dust lightly with icing sugar, using a fine sieve.
Set on top of the bottom cookie with the jam which will then show through the little holes.
Store in an airtight container between layers of wax paper for up to 3 days.
They may be frozen for up to a month.
Enjoy.
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