Czech cookies (26/12/06)

Linzer cookies (linecké cukroví)

this is a traditional czech christmas pastry, that we made on christmas eve. It should look as on this picture (taken, together with the recipe from Czech Radio pages).

here is its recipe

• 2 cps of fine flour

• 250g butter (not salted)

• half cup of fine sugar

• 3 egg yolks

• rasped lemon crust (1 spoon)

• some fine flour for rolling out the dought

• red or black currant jam (blackberry or blueberry would do as well)

• some butter to grease the baking tin

First you make the dought: you take the flour, rasped lemon crust, and mix them with sugar then add the melted butter and yolk. Do not use salted butter, because the cookies do not taste nice when you do so. We of course speak from own experience. I think I never had salty Linzer cookies before.

After that you knead the dought, which should become soft. After that you wrap the dought in the plastic foil and let it rest in the fridge for at least an hour. The dought has to be cold, when you start working with it again, which is very important especially in warmer climates as Hong Kong as we have learned.

In general, women can deal with the dought better, as the men loose their temper after three or four attempts. So, after you have taken the dought out of the fridge, you knead it with the rolling-pin (or an empty wine bottle) into a thin cake of about 3mm.

Once you have done so, you cut different shapes out of it with different forms that you should be able to buy at a household store. It is essential that the dought is still quite cold, when you have rolled it out into cake and started cutting it into shapes. As I learned later, when I was reporting our baking adventure to my sister Denisa who is a pastry-cook, you have to work really quickly, otherwise the dought will break (which we of course know from our own experience by now).

The forms that you have managed to cut nicely (we didn't) you put on the baking tin, that you have greased with some butter. It should look like these on the picture.

When you got this far, you can congratulate yourself, you are a born pastry-cook, and you can apply for Czech citizenship, because this is really an art.

Now the next step is baking. You bake the cookies at about 180 degree of Celsius till they get a nice golden colour. It takes about 15 minutes with the first round, but as you get going, the next rounds go much faster.

Now, when you got this far, there is still a lot that can go wrong. First of all, let the cookies cool down before you start working with them. Even taking them out from the baking tin can break them (I broke about one third of all cookies, and wonder how they do it at home).

So you pour yourself a glass of wine/beer and listen to some carols. After that, bring the red currant jam (or another type). Then you put a little bit of jam on a cookie, trying not to break it.
After that you put another cookie on the top.

The result should like on the picture below. Then the final trick come. Take a simple strainer, and put some fine sugar in it. Shake it a bit above the cookies and be-snow them with a thin layer of sugar.

Pretty, isn't it? Now you keep your cookies in a cold place and impress your christmas guests.
We certainly did, even with too thick cookies, made from salted butter.
This is our result














Not so bad at all, no?














Merry Christmas, Frantisek