I gotta stop baking all these goodies. Or else dramatically increase the exercise.
These are some Valentine treats for my husband. he loves a good jelly cookie.
We had some homemade jelly that a "sweet" friend gave us for Christmas. So I had all the ingredients here at the house.
I naively thought these would be easy to make. I was sure I would be finished baking them before dinner.
I am way to old to be telling this story!
While browsing People magazine I see the pretty picture below and think mmmmmm those are cute and look yummy. My hubby loves the Pepperidge Farms Raspberry Linzer cookies These reminded me of them. This is a recipe from Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. Having all the ingredients on hand I felt somewhat obligated to make them.
After letting the butter soften, I quickly mix the dough. As you can see in the picture below, it is a totally crumbly cookie dough. I was not concerned, I figured it would bind while chilling in frig for 30 minutes. Yeah it binded, like a hockey puck! When I tried to roll the chilled dough, it just crumbled. I was feeling extreme bakers frustration, I mean I followed the instructions to a T! I was ready to throw the dough!!
The internet is full of advice. So I Googled "crumbly linzer cookie dough". Apparently I was not the only person to face this challenge.
The advice that saved the dough was to not chill the dough after mixing. Since I already had formed a
puckdisk and chilled it, I warmed it in a glass dish in the oven for three minutes. Then I worked the dough directly on the counter, not holding it up in my hands. You can see the progress in the photo collage above. I also only ran the rolling pin over the dough once to smooth it. After I cut my cookie shapes with a cookie cutter, I used a spatula to place the cookies on the cookie sheet. (I used Reynold's Wrap non-stick foil on the cookie sheet)
Then I chilled the cookies on the cookie sheet in the frig for 30 minutes before baking them.
Then I chilled the cookies on the cookie sheet in the frig for 30 minutes before baking them.
Once I worked out my dough issues things moved along quickly.
I even felt some love for the cookies again.
Some more good advice was to cut the cookie tops and bottoms out at the same time so you had enough bottoms for all the tops you made......so you don't have to make a second batch of dough to make more cookie bottoms. Yeah that was some good advice I wish I had read somewhere!!
In consideration of chocolate lovers, I did a little drizzle.
This cookie story is turning into a cookie saga, so after putting a lot of time, effort, butter and sugar into these cookies (and not really feeling like giving the Barefoot Contessa a good review) we run to Costco for a few items and what do we see????? Giant Costco size Linzer cookies for $9.99!!! Seriously!! So of course we bought them...even though we have about three dozen homemade Linzer cookies at home. I mean we had to compare them to mine, right?? So after having a Linzer cookie comparison test we all agreed, they were both really good!!
This saga continues....I open up the Jan/Feb issue of Martha Stewart's magazine this morning and check out Martha's heart shaped cookies in the photo below.....I don't think she used a cookie cutter...and I think my cookies are cuter!! SShhhh don't tell Martha I said that!
Ok so below is a picture of the recipe. Click here to view Ina's Garten's Linzer Cookie recipe
After I got over the dough drama, I definitely give these cookies 5 stars. They are delicious. With one cup of sugar and 3/4's of a pound of butter you can't go wrong. They ended up being a quick cookie too, I put that second batch together in just minutes.
So after all the time, energy and effort I put into these homemade cookies, what I realized in the end is that I better get up early and head to the gym tomorrow morning! Looks like extra cardio for me!!!
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Ina Garten's Linzer Cookie Recipe
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