Bread & Honey has a recipe for Austrian Jam Cookies that I wanted to try and I’m oh so glad I did. These cookies combine some warm almondy, vanilla flavor with lava hot jam when you pull them out of the oven and pop them directly into your mouth. That almond flavor makes my mouth water just thinking about it.
There are two things I like about this recipe: 1. that it’s written with a vegan alternative, even though I didn’t use it… and 2. that the dough didn’t need to be refrigerated and it was really REALLY easy to make. I’m going to make my comments on the recipe in italics, the parenthesied bits were already there from the ladies over at Bread & Honey.
Austrian Jam Cookies
from Bread & Honey
1 cup margarine or butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs or egg replacer “eggs”
2 tsps vanilla extract (or almond extract, or both) I did 1.25 tsps vanilla + .75 tsps almond… yes I eyeballed it.
jam (or filling of your choice) I used strawberry preserves from trusty Trader Joes
slivered almonds (optional) I rolled them in almond meal
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large bowl, preferably with an electric mixer, beat margarine or butter, sugar, eggs, and extract(s) until smooth and creamy. Sift flour in 1 cup at a time. Roll dough into balls. Roll in slivered almonds (optional). Place on cookie sheet and thumbprint each cookie. Scoop jam into dented center (I find it best to use a small kid’s spoon for this).
Bake for 12-14 minutes (I baked them for 15, it took a long time for those bottoms to even HINT at getting golden), until bottoms are golden. Remove from cookie sheet after a few minutes to cool.
I’ve only made two changes to the recipe. 1.) I don’t use that large grain sugar. I don’t like all that extra crunch. 2.) I only bake them for 9 minutes. They’re perfect at nine and they harden just slightly around the edges as they cool with a nice squishy center. I definitely let them cool on the pan for a while before I move them to a rack… it makes a big difference. Between these and the pumpkin scones from the same site our winter days are much tastier!