Blackberry Linzer Cookies

Total Time: 2 hrs 10 mins Preparation Time: 2 hrs Cook Time: 10 mins

Ingredients

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, large
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/3 cup seedless blackberry jam (as little as 1/4 cup may be needed)
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest, finely grated
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 7 -8 leaves fresh thyme, finely chopped

Recipe

• 1 combine butter, sugar, egg, cream and vanilla.
• 2 then add salt, baking powder and flour, and beat until just combined, forming a soft dough. form into flattened disk, cover, and refrigerate 1 hour.
• 3 place dough between two large pieces of parchment paper, and roll out to 1/8 inch thickness.
• 4 cut out as many 2-inch round cookies as you can, placing on a lined baking sheet. use a linzer cookie cutter or a 1-inch round cookie cutter to create center holes in half of the rounds.
• 5 chill all dough you aren't working with, including all the cutting scraps, in the refrigerator before rolling them out again to make more rounds.
• 6 chill cut-out dough 10-15 minutes, if possible, before assembling cookies, so cookies won't lose their shape when handling. preheat oven to 350 degrees f when ready to assemble and bake.
• 7 to assemble, fill a small piping bag (or a quart-size resealable plastic food storage bag with the tip of one of its bottom corners snipped off) with the jam.
• 8 squeeze 1/2 teaspoon of the jam onto the center of each bottom round of dough. top with the second rounds that have a hole in them, pressing gently to create a sandwich.
• 9 space cookies 1 inch apart and bake one sheet at a time for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are barely golden brown.
• 10 to make lemon-thyme sugar: whisk together zest, sugar and thyme leaves.
• 11 while cookies are still hot on the baking sheet, immediately sprinkle them with lemon-thyme sugar, then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.