I also watched Star Wars for the first time. Gasp, I know. We watched the fifth and sixth episodes, which are apparently the second and third movies because it feels like being super confusing like that. Let's just say it is not all that it's worked up to be... sorry Vader fans.
Buttery Hazelnut Linzer Tarts
- ⅔ cup (3 oz.) hazelnuts
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- 2½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- ¼ tsp. cinnamon
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- seedless raspberry jam
- powdered sugar
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Toast hazelnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet until fragrant and well toasted. Rub nuts in a kitchen towel to remove any loose skins; not all the skins will come off but you should be able to remove at least 50% of the skins off the hazelnuts. Put them back in the oven if the skins aren’t coming off very easily (but don’t burn them!). You can then turn the oven off.
In a food processor, pulse nuts and ¼ cup brown sugar until finely ground. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter with the remaining ¼ cup brown sugar until creamy. Add nut mixture and beat until combined well. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix well. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until no streaks remain. Form dough into two disks and wrap in plastic wrap, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Remove one disk from the refrigerator and roll out to between 1/8 and 1/4-inch thick; the thicker you make it, the easier it will be to cut out shapes. Use cookie cutters or a circular object in your house to cut out as many cookies as possible. Gather back the dough and either re-roll or place back in the refrigerator to firm up again and take out the other disk (this is what I did). Transfer the cut-outs to a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Then, take a smaller circle cookie cutter and cut out circles from half of the larger circles. Bake cookies for 10 to 15 minutes. Let cool on wire racks.
Spoon about one teaspoon of seedless raspberry jam onto the circles without a cut-out in the center. Sandwich with a cookie with a cut-out in the center. Lay the cookies out in a single layer and dust powdered sugar on top.