What to do when your wine jelly has failed, at least as a possible gift to give to someone? Find a way to bake with it! Enter the linzer cookies from Joy of Baking. I had originally shelved this idea given I (still) lack a food processor. But then one day what did I behold at No Frills, why ground almonds! Now I had no excuse not to make the cookies. The freestanding electric mixer is a god-send, I absolutely love it. Combine it with my new bigger kitchen and it is culinary heaven. Except that the cord is really short, so all that extra space I have thanks to the kitchen island, it is not applicable to the mixer. For that I have a small smidgen of counter space between the stove and the microwave but I’m not complaining.
The dough has to be refrigerated, which is a good thing given that the wine jelly is still over at the old place and has not been transported to the new apartment- yet. I could not resist making the dough, I had some time to myself AND I was in major need of some cookie dough to munch on. This is easily the best cookie dough I have ever had the pleasure of eating. The ground almonds really add in that extra flavour that you just don’t get with artificial flavouring.
It turns out that when they say to roll the dough out to a certain thickness, they mean business. The first batch I made turned out really thick, not exactly great for stacking as sandwiches. The second problem was that my failed wine jelly just leaked out the side creating a gooey sticky mess around the cookie. So much for using up the jelly for that. Batch two I rolled out a bit thinner, but apparently still not thin enough. Batch three was much better- but I forgot to adjust the baking time and they were a bit darker. Batch four: FINALLY! Success!!! They were perfect and the tart berry jam I used went well with them. The last bit of dough I had left over I just made little blobs that I glazed with the wine jelly before baking. Turns out that was an ingenious idea as those turned out possibly even more delicious? Soft almond cookies with a sweet wine glaze. This one just begs to be done over as a full batch.
