Best Linzer Cookie Recipe - The Carefree Kitchen (2024)

This is the best Linzer Cookie recipe, made with light and tender almond shortbread sandwiched with your choice of jams, jellies, curds, or ganache. They're a perfect Christmas Cookie Recipe - beautiful, festive, and oh-so-delicious.

The buttery almond linzer cookies melt in your mouth and taste so great with sweet fruit jams and jellies. You can use any shapes of cookie butters that you want, and feel free to get creative with your linzer cookie fillings.

Best Linzer Cookie Recipe

Linzer Cookies are originally from Austria but have become a permanent fixture on Christmas cookie plates in the United States, too. Not only are they buttery, tender and beautiful to look at, they are also super fun to make.

Before you get started, pull out all of your favorite cookie cutters and choose some that are larger and some that are smaller. Next, you’ll need to figure out what filling you want to go with. Since the cookies themselves are not very sweet, it’s nice to go with a sweeter filling such as raspberry jam, apricot preserves or lemon curd.

From there, just follow the directions below and enjoy. These are great cookies to get the little ones involved with too. They will love using the cookie cutters, spreading the fillings and dusting the tops with powdered sugar.

Linzer Cookie Recipe Ingredients

• Butter - you want the butter to be softened so either pull out at room temperature for a couple of hours beforehand or slowly warm in the microwave for about 10 seconds at a time just until soft.
• Sugar - this recipe calls for white granulated sugar.
• Egg Yolk - you only need the yolk so you can either reserve the egg white for another use or toss.
• Vanilla Extract - pure vanilla extract tastes best.
• Salt - sea salt works great.
• Flour - we use all-purpose flour for this recipe.
• Cinnamon - use your favorite type of ground cinnamon.
• Almond Flour - you can typically find this in the baking aisle at the grocery store.

How to Make Linzer Cookies

1. Cream the butter and sugar. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar and cream together using the paddle attachment until light and fluffy.
2. Mix the dough. Add the egg yolk then mix on low speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla and salt and mix until combined, then add the flour, cinnamon and almond flour. Mix on low speed just until combined. Do not overmix!
3. Divide and chill. Separate the dough into 2 flat disks, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes, or until chilled.
4. Roll dough. When you are ready to roll out the dough, flour your counter and rolling pin well. Roll one disk at a time to ⅛", flouring more as needed so that it doesn't stick (the dough should be sticky).
5. Cut cookies. Using a 2-2 ½" cookie cutter, stamp out shapes and then place onto parchment lined baking sheets. Take half of the cookies and use a smaller cookie cutter to cut out a shape in the center.
6. Bake. Bake in a preheated oven for 7-9 minutes, or until lightly golden on the edges. Remove cookies from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
7. Finish cookies. Place the cookies with the hole in the center onto a tray and dust with powdered sugar. Take the remaining cookies and add 2 teaspoons of jelly, Nutella, or lemon curd, spreading it slightly. Cover with the cookie top.
8. Serve. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. Enjoy!

Easy Linzer Cookie Recipe Variations

• Add lemon zest. Before creaming together the butter and sugar, add the zest of 1 lemon to the sugar and mix using your fingers. From there, you can make the recipe as directed.
• Use different nuts. Even though Linzer Cookies are traditionally made with almond flour, no one is going to stop you from using hazelnut or pistachio flour instead.
• Make them gluten free. If you substitute the all-purpose flour for a gluten free flour mix these will be gluten free.

Frequently Asked Questions

Storing and Freezing Instructions

• Room Temperature: you can store Linzer Cookies sandwiched with shelf stable fillings (such as jam) in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
• Refrigerator: store Linzer Cookies sandwiched with all other fillings (such as curds) in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
• Freezer: store baked and unfilled Linzer Cookies in airtight containers or freezer bags for up to 2 months in the freezer.
• Dough: unbaked dough can be stored in the fridge for up to 1 week or the freezer for up to 2 months.

More of our favorite Christmas cookie recipes

• Lemon Cooler Cookies
• Heath Toffee Cookies
• Snickerdoodles
• Eggnog Cookies with Eggnog Buttercream Frosting
• Soft Molasses Cookies
• Mint Chocolate Dipped Oreos
• MoreBest Cookie Recipes
• MoreHoliday Recipes
• MoreCookie Bar Recipes

Today is Freaky Friday, Christmas Cookie Edition.

This is a fun event hosted by my friend Michaela from An Affair From The Heart, it's where a bunch of food bloggers get together and are secretly assigned someone else's blog and we all share the same day. It's so much fun seeing what someone else chose to make from my recipe collection and getting to know each other by digging through each other's recipes. It's fun to pick just the right one for my Carefree Kitchen readers. Go check out my past Freaky Friday Recipes after you print off this Linzer Cookie Recipe!

This round I was assigned my friend and the one and only Chef Kathy. She is an incredible Chef and has worked with Wolfgang Puck and Bobby Flay! How amazing is that!?! She teaches cooking classes and has a gorgeous website, Lemon Blossoms, it's filled with all kinds of main dishes, appetizers, and more.

While her resume is quite impressive, her recipes are even better. I chose to make her recipe for homemade Linzer Cookies. I thought it would be the perfect recipe to make for the holidays and they'll fit right in with all the Christmas Cookies.

While you're looking around Kathy's site. Be sure to check out her incredible Flan Recipe and you won't want to miss her Bananas Foster French Toast because it is to die for. Be sure to check out her Butter Pecan Cake too because yes, it really is as good as it sounds.

Please take a look at Kathy's site, Lemon Blossoms, and find some great recipes for yourself. Along with all of these recipes from our Freaky Friday Bloggers...Christmas Cookie Edition.

Take a look at all of our 2021 Freaky Friday Holiday Cookie Exchange Recipes:

1. An Affair from the Heart - Candy Cane Puppy Chow
2. The Carefree Kitchen - Christmas Linzer Cookies
3. Devour Dinner - Peppermint Meltaways
4. Family Around the Table - Chocolate Overload Cookies
5. The Foodie Affair - Easy Pecan Pie Crust Cookie Recipe
6. Fresh April Flours - Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies
7. The Fresh Cooky - White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
8. Hostess at Heart - Crumbl Cookie Recipe
9. House of Nash Eats - Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies
10. Kathryn's Kitchen Blog - Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
11. Lemoine Family Kitchen - Lemon Thumbprint Cookies with Strawberry Jam
12. Lemon Blossoms - Cranberry Orange Biscotti
13. Life Currents - Chocolate Mint Rugelach
14. Life, Love & Good Food - White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
15. Soulfully Made - Polar Bear Paw Cookies
16. The Speckled Palate - Saltine Cracker Toffee
17. Sue Bee Homemaker - Jam Thumbprint Cookies
18. Take Two Tapas - Sugar Cookie Truffles

These Linzer Cookies are buttery, tender, beautiful, and delicious. Filled with your favorite jams, jellies, and curds, they make the best holiday cookies to add to your cookie plate or bring to your next get together.

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