Gluten Free Linzer Cookies

Aaaaaaah, Linzer cookies. There’s just something about Linzers cookies that makes you want to dive right in and cover yourself with jam and powdered sugar. I love how each crumbly, buttery shortbread cookie clings to its swath of red jam, like the fruity sweetness is the only thing holding it together (and I guess it is!). The dusting of powdered sugar across the top layer always reminds me of winter, like a snow-covered church with its brightly colored stained glass window shining through the blustery cold. Without fail, Linzer cookies always make me smile.

Making a gluten-free Linzer cookie recipe wasn’t difficult – the basic flour mix does the job quite well with a few added grains – but moving the dough from one place to another after it had been cut was a pain in the a$$. I came up with a way to move the cookies without them turning into examples of non-Euclidean geometry, which you’ll find below.

I opted to use star-shaped cookie cutters for my Linzer cookies, because I’m obsessed with stars and collect them in every form that I can. These little stained glass-looking star cookies make me grin right down to a subatomic level, and just thinking about eating them later makes me as giddy as a kid on the day before winter break. You can (and should) try making them in a variety of sizes and shapes. Then comes back and show me what you’ve created!

While the traditional jam flavor used for Linzer cookies is red or black currant, you can use any kind of jam for these cookies. For the ones in the photograph I used a very special jar of jam that I received from Rachel Saunders at Blue Chair Fruit Company, an artisan jam operation in Oakland, California. Rachel gifted me with this particularly enticing flavor: Black Plum Jam with Candied Citrus & Bay. Rachel combined Burgundy and Satsuma plums with hand-candied lemon and orange peel and freshly picked bay laurel. The result is a super-tart jam, complete with tiny bits of plum skins and bright citrus peel. Why am I mentioning this? I think that Rachel is doing amazingly creative things with jam, and I’d love to impart some of her creativity onto you, my dear reader. Experiment with your Linzer cookies, trying jams beyond the usual suspects of strawberry, raspberry, and boysenberry. I actually took a few Linzer shells and made a chocolate peanut butter Linzer cookie. Was it traditional? No way. Was it freaking delicious? You have no idea.

A note on moving Linzer cookie dough

Anyone who’s ever made dough cutouts with cookie cutters knows that it’s tough – nay, nearly impossible – to move cookie dough to a baking sheet once it’s been cut into shapes. Tender dough likes to bend and stretch, and what was once a teddy bear often looks like a circus acrobat after a car wreck by the time it gets to the cookie sheet. Gluten-free dough is even harder to work with.

I’ve come up with a solution – roll your dough out onto a piece of parchment, cut out your shapes with cookie cutters, remove the excess dough to be re-rolled, and then cut the parchment around the cookies with a pair of scissors. The cookies can then be moved without contorting into unrecognizable shapes, and since they’re on parchment, they won’t stick to the cookie sheet. You can even move the baked cookies with the parchment, leaving them on the paper until they’re completely cooled and not likely to bend or break. Success tastes good, doesn’t it?

If you like this Linzer cookies, check out these other Linzer recipes:

• Giant Linzer Cookie, Gluten-Free
• Linzer Hearts
• Linzer Cookies
• Gluten Free Hazelnut Linzer Cookies – LOVE this cookie design!