Drei Augen
Linzer torte is a traditional holiday dessert in Austria, and is rumored to be the oldest torte in the world. Linzer hearts are the cookie version of these tarts popular in America, usually with a heart shape stamped out of the center of the top cookie. These related cookies are called drei Augen, or “three eyes” in Germany, and, like the aforementioned desserts, consist of jam encased in shortbread and dusted with sugar.
Making this buttery, nutty pastry dough reminded me of making graham crackers; you roll out a very thin layer of rich, delicate dough that’s not very sweet. There’s no leavener here, so these aren’t going to puff up much, either. I imagine this process is much the same with regular crackers, which I’d like to experiment with some time. In the meantime, enjoy this recipe for these delightful tart-like cookies from the Joy of Cooking.
Drei Augen
2½ c unsifted all-purpose flour
½ c unblanched almonds, finely ground
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1½ c soy margarine, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
powdered sugar
jam of your choice
parchment paper
In a small mixing bowl, mix together flour, ground almonds, and cinnamon.
Cream together margarine and sugar. Add flour mixture and mix well. Divide dough into three balls.
Place each ball of dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll to 1/8″ thickness. (If anyone has an alternative to parchment paper, do let me know! Silicone baking sheets might also work fine.)
Fridge for about an hour (or freeze for ~30 minutes), until firm.
Preheat oven to 350°. Remove one sheet of dough from fridge, leaving the rest to chill. Using a 1½” cookie cutter, stamp out your cookie rounds. (I used a thin shot glass — keep it classy! –, but feel free to use any kind of cutter you like here.)
With a ~3/8″ decorating tip (or a straw), stamp out 3 holes in half of the cookies; these will be the tops.
Bake a single sheet at a time with cookies ~1″ apart on the second-to-top rack in your oven and check after 4-5 minutes have passed; you may need to wait another minute or two for these to turn the palest shade of golden, but as there’s no leavener, you’re not going to screw them up by peeking too soon, and these puppies burn incredibly quickly (read: seconds after turning golden, I kid you not), so you’re going to have to keep a close eye on them, lest you inadvertently destroy half your batch.
Continue with the rest of the sheets of dough until all the dough has been used up. (I fridged, balled up, and rolled out the scraps to make the most cookies possible.)
Cool cookies and dust the tops (the ones with cutouts) with powdered sugar. In a small saucepan on low heat, bring ¾ c jam to a boil for 2 minutes, stirring so it doesn’t burn. Remove from burner and cool ’til lukewarm — warmer is ok; you just don’t want to let it cool fully, as the jam will set. Flip the solid cookies over and drop a small amount (~¼ tsp) of warm jam onto the bottom of the cookie. Place one of the powdered cookies on top, and press lightly until jam begins to fill the holes. Don’t press down hard; as with all shortbread, these cookies are fragile, and they’ll break with too much pressure. This shouldn’t be an issue as long as your jam is still warm (and thus thinner). You can also add a thin layer of chocolate beneath the jam if that floats your boat.
Enjoy!
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these are the most beautiful cookies i have ever seen. also they seem like they would be my favorite kind of cookie to eat. high five
these look wonderful claryn! i wish we could bake together!
e – Aw! Thanks, dude
Tessa – Thank you! And me too! Maybe some day we’ll be in the same kitchen again. It looks like we were even on the same wavelength this week with our jam-filled cookies.
mmm I love this kind of cookie! I had never thought of making them myself but you make it look so easy…maybe this will be a project for spring break.
[...] peanuts which I was not exactly inclined to bring with me. So I adjusted the recipe I used to make drei Augen last year and came up with [...]
[...] as well. There are loads of great recipes out there but I choose to use a combination of one from Hell Yeah It’s Vegan (for the biscuits commonly known as Linzer Hearts, Drei Augen, or Jammy Dodgers) and one from [...]