Tuesdays with Dorie: Linzer Sables

I was slightly underwhelmed by the Linzer Sables. I've always liked linzer cookies but they look too intimidating for me to even consider making them. I was up for the challenge to try and honestly putting together the dough was a piece of cake. Dorie gives you the option of using walnuts, hazelnuts or almonds for the dough and I chose the walnuts.

After the dough was made it was rolled out between parchment paper and refrigerated for two hours.

I pulled it out of the fridge and began cutting the cookies out. I'm usually a not a cookie-cutter kind of girl, I think they look beautiful but mine never look like the ones at bakeries. I used a mini-flower shaped cutter I had on hand and when I tried to cut the center out of them the dough fell apart. So I decided those were way too small to try to take the centers out of. I tried a larger star shaped cutter and then centers came out of them nicely. Also I found the colder the dough the easier the cut was.The first batch I put in the oven I burned because I had set the oven too high without realizing it until I smelled buring cookies. The next batches came out fine though. I love the jam in the cookies but I was in the mood for chocolate so I made chocolate ganache to spread between them, as Dorie mentions on the side of the recipe page in 'Playing Around.' I also left out the powdered sugar sprinkled on top because I forgot to pick some up at the store.

In the end some of the cookies came out very well, some did not. They taste okay but maybe I didn't put forth enough of an effort for them to be better. I'll try these again with jam and maybe I'll be able to achieve that stained glass perfection you see behind the cases in bakeries.

Thanks to Noskos of Living the Life for the week's selection, I always enjoy making something I've never made before!