The best Linzer Christmas cookies

Mix all the ingredients together and knead into a dough. Let it rest in the fridge for a while.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough into a sheet. Use cookie cutters to cut out pairs of shapes, ensuring you have one solid shape and one with a hole in the middle (use a smaller cutter for the hole). Special double-sided cutters are available for this purpose, which make the process easier. This is a great activity to involve young children, who can choose different shaped cutters. Just make sure you have an equal number of solid and holey cookies.

Transfer the cut-out shapes onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.

Bake in a preheated fan oven at 180°C until golden.

Once baked, place the cookies in a cardboard box and let them rest for a few days. Freshly baked, they are too fragile and may crack when spread with marmalade. After resting, pair the cookies by spreading the tangy marmalade on the solid cookie and placing the holey one on top.

Dust the finished cookies with a mixture of icing sugar and vanilla sugar.

Tip 1:

For a perfect contrast between the white dusted dough and the colourful marmalade, reverse the process: first dust the holey cookies with sugar, then place them on top of the marmalade-spread solid cookies.

Tip 2:

You can also decorate the Linzer cookies with chocolate stripes, as explained in the recipe for Ischler Törtchen, using a special piping spoon with a pouring spout.