The jam was super easy to make, the apple provided a natural source of pectin so there was no need for preserving sugar, which I believe to be a little too sweet. The citrus provided such a lovely tang to balance the sweetness of the strawberries. Delicious! Thank you to Margot of Effort to Deliciousness for selecting this beautiful recipe and as always, check out the other SMS ladies for more jammy goodness.
Linzer Cookies:
225g unsalted butter , softened
150g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg yolks , beaten
250g plain flour
110g ground almonds
raspberry jam, for spreading
icing sugar , to dust
Beat the butter and caster sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla and egg yolks and mix thoroughly. Gradually add the flour and ground almonds. Lightly knead the mixture until it comes together in a ball. Wrap and chill for 1 hour.
Heat the oven to 170C/fan 150C/gas 5. Roll the dough out to the thickness of a £1 coin on a lightly floured surface and stamp out biscuits using a 6-7cm cutter. Reshape leftover dough into a ball, re-roll and cut out more biscuits. Stamp out a smaller circle from the middles of half the biscuits.
Put the biscuits on lined baking sheets and bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden. You may need to do these in batches. Rest for a minute then transfer to a cooling rack. When completely cold, spread the whole biscuits with either jam. Dust the ring-shaped biscuits with icing sugar. Put a sugar-dusted ring on top of a jam-covered biscuit and press lightly together.
Oh, and I almost forgot to add. This is my first Sweet Melissa Sunday post as a graduate. Yup, I'm now Katie Deacon BA (hons). Hurrah, although I found the fact I graduated in gryffindor colours far more exciting than actually graduating! (also, please excuse my hair, it was raining awfully heavy on graduation day!)
