Sweets for the sweet! Enjoy these sandwich cookies on Valentines day from GialloZafferano, Italy’s #1 food website. Find this and many more recipes on the Giallozafferano App in English http://itunes.apple.com/app/giallozafferano-recipes/id384387249?mt=8
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Welcome to the GialloZafferano kichen. I’m Sonia and Valentine’s Day is nearly here. I’m going to show you a delicious and easy recipe for you and your sweeter half: Valentine’s Day Linzer Tarts. Let’s see what ingredients we’ll need:
• 9 tbsp of butter
• 2 of flour
• The grated zest of half a lemon
• half a tablespoon of baking powder • A teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• Strawberry jam
• Powdered sugar
• a half cup of sugar
For this recipe you’ll also need 2 heart shaped cookie cutters, 1 small and 1 large to form the window in the top biscuit. Let’s see how to make them:
First of all, pour out the flour onto a worktop. Add the sugar and then form a wide hole in the centre into which you’ll put the rest of the ingredients. Add the lemon zest, the baking powder, the vanilla, the eggs, and the softened butter which you can piece apart with your fingers. Now bring it together and knead until you’ve gotten a smooth and even dough.
Here’s the dough. Now put it onto some plastic wrap, flatten it a bit and wrap and place it in the fridge for at least a half hour to rest. In the meantime you can preheat your oven to 350F.
Once the dough has chilled, take it out and roll it out to a thickness of a quarter inch. Now cut your heart shapes and place them on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Cut out all of your shapes being sure to make an even amount.
I’ve placed all the hearts onto the baking sheet and now you’ll see why there needs to be an even number: the biscuits are made by layering two biscuits together. The base is the complete heart and the top has a heart-shaped window. So here we have a row of complete hearts, and we’ll cut the windows from the hearts in the second row. It’s important to do this on the baking sheet to avoid marring the shape by transferring it from one place to another. If you nudge the dough out of shape just reform it with your fingers. Continue until finished and then bake the biscuits at 350F for 15 minutes. The biscuits needn’t be cooked until dark, but get only lightly golden.
Our biscuits are cooked. Now, it’s time to put them together. Take a base, spread it with strawberry jam, and top it with the open heart. If you can’t find two heart shaped cutters, you can also cut the biscuits into a circle, spread them with jam, and then cover them with another circle into which you can cut the heart.
A sprinkling of powdered sugar, and our biscuits are finished. A perfect start to your Valentine’s dessert. From Sonia and GialloZafferano, bye and see you next time.