Did it work out?
One click, and we know how the recipe works in a real kitchen.
Cooking
Linzer Cookies with Salted Caramel and Flaky Sea Salt
· 4 servings
Dissolve the sugar in water
Put the sugar, water and lemon juice in a heavy-bottomed, light-colored saucepan. Heat over medium heat without stirring, just gently swirling the pan.
Cover with a lid
Once the syrup is clear, cover with a lid for two minutes. The steam washes sugar crystals off the sides of the pan. A single crystal above the surface can crystallize the whole batch.
Cook to the color of dark honey
Uncover and keep cooking without stirring until the caramel turns golden, the color of dark honey. With a thermometer, aim for 175 °C; without one, you'll know the moment by the nutty aroma.
Stir in the butter
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the cold butter, a cube at a time. It will sputter, which is perfectly normal.
Pour in the warm cream
Pour in the warmed cream in a thin stream, stirring. Cold cream would cool the caramel all at once and it would harden into a hard candy.
Season with salt and cool
Stir in the flaky salt and pour the caramel into a wide, shallow bowl. Place it in the fridge and stir every ten minutes. After twenty minutes it will be at room temperature.
Cube the butter for the dough
Cut the cold butter into cubes of about 1 cm and return it to the fridge. While the caramel cools, the butter chills too.
Sift the flour
Sift the flour, starch and salt into a bowl.
Prepare the flavor base
Slit the vanilla pod lengthwise, scrape out the seeds with a knife and rub them into the powdered sugar with your fingers. Don't add lemon zest here, as it would compete with the salt.
Make the crumb
Rub the cubed cold butter into the sifted flour with your fingers, or use short pulses in a food processor, until the mixture looks like coarse, damp sand.
Bring the dough together
Add the vanilla sugar and the egg yolk and mix only until combined. Then smear the dough once or twice across the work surface with the heel of your hand.
Wrap into a disc and chill
Press into a disc 2 cm thick, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour, ideally overnight.
Let it soften and roll out
Let it soften for 5 to 10 minutes, then roll out between two sheets of baking paper to 3 mm.
Cut out the rounds
Cut the shapes close together, making an equal number of bottoms and tops with a window.
Chill the cut-outs
Put the tray of cut-out shapes in the freezer for 10 minutes or in the fridge for 15 to 30 minutes.
Bake
Bake at 175 °C for about 8 to 10 minutes, until the edges are just starting to turn golden.
Let cool
Leave on the baking sheet for 3 to 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
Fill with caramel
Spoon the cooled caramel into a piping bag with the tip snipped off. Pipe a dot in the center of each upturned bottom cookie, about a third of a teaspoon. It spreads by itself when you top it.
Add salt to the window
Top with a cookie with a window and place three or four salt flakes in the window while the caramel is still sticky. Don't dust with powdered sugar, as it would overpower the salt.
Let them rest
Store in a tin, layering the cookies between sheets of paper, and let them rest in a cool room for at least three days.