Buttery shortbread cutout cookies, dusted with powdered sugar, and sandwiched with a decadent salted caramel sauce - these salted caramel Christmas cookies are a true crowd pleaser at any holiday party.
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These salted caramel Christmas linzer cookies are made with a buttery, almond flour shortbread cookie, a decadent caramel sauce, and a generous dusting of powdered sugar. They're the queen of simple, yet impressive. The dough truly is just as easy as any cutout cookie dough, but if you happen to make a few mistakes, no one will know because they'll be covered in powdered sugar! So no matter what, they'll look beautiful and taste absolutely delicious. Be sure to check out all the other Christmas cookies in this Christmas cookie gift box!
Ingredients
- All-Purpose Flour: You'll need two cups of flour, but I HIGHLY recommend weighing it to exactly 240g.
- Almond Flour: Use extra fine almond flour for the best texture.
- Spices: I added some spices to give these cookies some warmth, but it is completely optional.
- Unsalted Butter: You'll need two sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature, as well as a few tablespoons for the caramel sauce.
- Granulated Sugar: You'll need about ¾ cup of sugar for the cookies and ½ cup for the caramel sauce.
- Egg: Bring your egg to room temperature by adding it in a bowl of warm water.
- Vanilla: Use a good quality vanilla paste or extract.
- Cream of tartar: To prevent the caramel sauce from crystalizing and to help stabilize it, add a touch of cream of tartar.
- Heavy Cream: You'll need about a ¼ cup of heavy cream for the ganache.
- Powdered Sugar: Of course you'll need powdered sugar to decorate the top linzer cookies.
FAQ
To ensure that the linzer cookies maintain their shape in the oven, chill the cookie dough for at least one hour, then freeze the cutout dough for at least 10 minutes.
Homemade caramel sauce is much easier to make than you think! All it is is cooking sugar over the stove until it turns an amber color, then adding heavy cream and butter to make it a sauce.
It can be a little tricky, depending on the method that you use. I prefer the wet method, which involves adding about a tablespoon of water to the sugar so each granule is hydrated. As it's cooked over the stove, it is more likely to caramelize evenly. With the dry method (just sugar), there is a higher chance that a granule of sugar that is not dissolving and caramelizing will come into contact with the sugar that is caramelizing and react, crystalizing the entire pot of sugar. If this happens, you typically need to start over.
An additional way of ensuring that the caramel doesn't crystalize is to add a pinch of cream of tartar. It will stabilize the sugar and give you a much higher chance of making caramel sauce perfectly every single time.
Since linzer cookies are meant to be crisp, they should be stored at room temperature covered loosely with aluminum foil. However, since the caramel sauce needs to be refrigerated, I would not recommend leaving the cookies out longer than a day. Store them in the fridge for about 3-5 days.
-Â Electric mixer: A stand mixer or a hand-held electric mixer is needed to properly cream the butter and sugar together.
-Â Parchment paper:Â To avoid the cookies sticking, line each baking sheet with parchment paper.
-Â Kitchen scale:Â You'll need a kitchen scale to weigh all of your ingredients (read why below)!
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How to accurately measure ingredients for baking
All of the recipes on this blog are carefully developed to create incredibly delicious baked goods that you can easily recreate in your own kitchen with success. The only way this is possible is to standardize the way ingredients are measured - by weight. Volume measurements are extremely inaccurate and leave room for significant errors. Not all measuring cups are made equally, so your one cup of flour will be different from my one cup of flour. By providing precise measurements in grams (aside from minor ingredients, which are given in tsp/tbsp), I can ensure that you can make the recipe accurately and with less cleanup! All you need is this kitchen scale.
If this still isn't enough to convince you, I have provided volume measurements in the recipe card. If you are interested in understanding the conversions, this is the best conversion chart.
But trust me, once you try baking in grams you'll never turn back!
Happy baking! x
Salted Caramel Christmas Linzer Cookies
Ingredients
For the spiced linzer cookies:
- 240 g 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 110 g 1 cup + 2 tablespoon almond flour
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ginger
- ¼ teaspoon cloves
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 227 g 1 cup; 2 sticks unsalted butter (room temp)
- 150 g ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg, room temp
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
- powdered sugar for dusting
For the caramel sauce:
- 100 g ½ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- â…› teaspoon cream of tartar
- 15 g 1 tablespoon water
- 42 g 3 tablespoon unsalted butter (room temp)
- 56 g ¼ cup heavy cream (lukewarm)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
Instructions
For the spiced linzer cookies:
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, almond flour, spices (optional), and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar for 2-3 minutes until light and fluffy.
- Add the egg and vanilla to the butter, sugar mixture, and mix until fully combined.
- Add the dry ingredients in two batches, mixing on low speed until everything is mostly combined.
- Use a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom of the bowl and finish combining the dough.
- Divide the dough in two, shape into disks, and wrap tightly with plastic wrap. Chill in the fridge for at least one hour or up to a few days.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- On a lightly floured surface (or between two floured pieces of parchment paper), roll out one disk of dough to ¼" in thickness. Use a 2 ½" - 3" fluted round cutter and a small snowflake cutter. Cut out an even number of solid cookies and cookies with a snowflake cutout.
- Place all cutout cookie dough in the freezer for 10 minutes. Place the scrap cookie dough back in the fridge for about 15 minutes before re-rolling.
- Bake the frozen cutout cookies for about 10 minutes. Bake the small snowflakes for about 8 minutes.
- Allow cookies to cool completely on the baking sheet.
- Repeat with the remaining cookie dough.
For the caramel sauce:
- In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar, salt, cream of tartar, and water.
- Heat over medium high heat, swirling (not stirring) often to encourage even cooking. When it comes to a boil reduce heat to medium.
- When the color turns an even medium amber color remove from heat and add the butter one tablespoon at a time, whisking to combine. Whisk in the heavy cream and vanilla.
- Transfer to a glass jar to cool, then chill in the fridge overnight.
For assembly:
- Pair the linzer cookies up and sprinkle powdered sugar on the top snowflake cutout cookies.
- Spread a thin layer of caramel sauce on the bottom cookie, then place the paired cookie on top.
- Sprinkle the caramel center with flaky sea salt and enjoy!
Notes
- I recommend making the caramel sauce the day before the cookies will be assembled so it has time to thicken up in the fridge overnight.
- I also prefer to make the cookie dough the day before and let it chill overnight, but they can be baked the same day so long as the dough has at least one hour to chill in the fridge.
- Store these cookies in the fridge for 3-5 days.
Did you make this recipe? Let me know how it turned out!