Cooking up Cookies and Cards

Did some baking and some card making during the last week. The cookie making definitely dominated at the beginning of the week.
Here's a pic after many hours of rolling, chilling, cutting, chilling, baking.  Oh - they are Linzer cookies. An amazing recipe found years ago by my sister in a magazine. It comes from a chef that worked at the White House. We made these cookies for Christmas and they have always been a family favorite. But because they are labor intensive I'd given up making them at Christmas. For the last couple of years I've made them for my Mom (the number 1 fan of these cookies) for her birthday.







Now for years I'd made these cookies with a scalloped round cookie cutter. And yes, they are a sandwich cookie. And the topper cookie has a hole cut into it. For years I used a decorating tip - pressing it into the cookie and pulling out that center piece - it was a bit of insanity but I didn't have a very small round cookie cutter to cut out that center piece. Quite by accident I came upon this Wilton Cookie Cutter set in a store at Christmas time - I practically did a happy dance in the store - knowing I would be able to easily cut out that center hole!

So on Monday of this week I made the Linzer cookie and put it in the fridge to chill. On Tuesday, I rolled, chilled, cut, chilled, and baked the cookies. Then on Tuesday night I assembled all the cookies. In between the sandwich is raspberry jam spread onto the bottom cookie. You place the topper on then add a small amount of jam in the hole.
I was doing all this ahead of time as I needed the jam to set up so I could pack the cookies up and mail them off to my Mom - who is visiting my sister - and get them to her in time for her birthday which is Sunday. Wednesday night I packed up these delectable little treats and mailed them off on Thursday.
The new cookie cutter is slightly smaller then my original cutter so I made approximately 8 dozen Linzers. Do the math kids - 8x12x2 - yeah.. i cut out close to 200 of these rascals. But trust me when I say they are some pretty ridiculous cookies and my mom - she deserves something special. I'll be back to share a few cards tomorrow.