The 3 day Linzer cookies that weren't

Actually, these cookies started sometime after Christmas, one day when I was at the mall with my teenaged brother. He wanted music and I was just there with him.

When we left that mall, he had a heavy metal cd that made me shudder, and I had 4 new sets of cookies cutters, purchased at a 50% off clearance sale. Three sets of Linzer cookie cutters and a snowflake set.

I admit, I had no intentions of making Linzer cookies. They seemed fussy, with the two layers, and jam is not something I want in my cookies.

I admit, again, I bought 3 sets of Linzer cookie cutters for the cut out centers. Yes, the cute little center cut outs. I ended up with the traditional centers: diamond, heart, circle, star, flower and triangle. I bought early for next year, a Christmas set of angel, candycane, Christmas star, bell, ornament and tree. And the more fun Autumn set of pumpkin, acorn, turkey, maple leaf, moon (with little face) and bat.

All so I could make little itty bitty cookies and crackers in fun shapes for my children. (Or me.)

For one reason or another, not sure what it is, I suddenly had the desire to make Linzer cookies. A brand new jar of raspberry jam was waiting for me, and the recipe on the back of the cookie cutter boxes did not involve any kind of nut. So I threw together the dough and put it in the fridge for the minimum of 2 hours of chilling.

Then I forgot about it.

I forgot about it that day.

I forgot again the next day. (Which was very busy.)

Three days later, I pulled out my dough to allow it to warm up slightly before I started rolling and cutting. I set up my counter, having cleaned and dried it off, sprinkled some flour on it, turned on my oven and gotten out my rolling pin and my cutter of choice.

An hour later the dough was still cold and very, very hard.

It was also crystalized on the surface. Actually, it seemed crystalized everywhere.

Two hours later and not much had changed. The dough wasn't cold anymore, but it was still hard and very crumbly. Not exactly a good candidate for rolled cookies.

So I threw it out.

And then went looking for a sugar cookie recipe (my previous search for a Linzer cookie recipe revealed only 2 with no nuts in it - the one I made and one from Cooking Light, though it required things I didn't have on hand. Like egg substitute.) As usual, I ended up here.

This dough made good cookies. Easy to roll, did not get tough when I rerolled (and rerolled) the scraps. Baked up golden brown on the bottom, perfectly colored on the top. And melded very well with the raspberry jam and icing sugar.

And the little heart cutouts were so cute!

I have had excellent feedback on these, from both the usual, and some unusual sources.

Another admission - a week later and I still have half the cookie dough in my fridge. I suspect it will be fine and will roll and bake just fine.

Which is good - I have company coming soon and a few Linzer cookies, heart ones of course, would be a perfect thing to serve them with their tea!