Linzer Cookies with Apricot Filling

During high school, my friends and I would get together and make cookies for Valentine’s Day. I, being a diehard romantic, always loooooved the idea of baking for someone special — even if they were just for my friends. Reading manga about girls staying up late baking for the person they like + their friends… it really makes your heart flutter!

This year I was feeling nostalgic, so I asked Liz if she could help me make chocolates and cookies like we used to. I’ll preface right now and say that I just picked out the recipes and assembled/decorated, haha! All compliments should be reserved for Liz, who made the dough perfectly (and taught me patiently), my mom (who provided all the tools and ingredients), and the authors of the recipes we used.

Back then, my favorite cookies to make were 1) linzer cookies and 2) checkerboard cookies. Suffice it to say I still love these two types of cookies. If I was going to give these to someone, I better learn how to make cute ones!

For the recipe, we used Martha Stewart’s Pecan Linzer Cookies with Cherry Filling, sans pecan and cherry filling. We got started pretty late after a nice dinner eating KBBQ, and by the time I was ready to assemble, I realized I didn’t have any raspberry OR strawberry jam! I did have apricot jam, however, so I reduced that as the filling (on my second attempt, that is. I burned the first batch pretty severely after Liz went home).

Dusting the cookies with powdered sugar!

Assembly time!

There’s really not much to say about the process on these – we followed the recipe to a T aside from the pecans and filling. Although, I did make them a little on the thicker side – oops!

I really liked that the dough wasn’t too sweet. The powdered sugar and filling more than made up for that.

The final products!