It’s the perfect time of year! Christmas! 

I’ve already given the best recipe for the main course but how about a desert? A light yet delicious one. You’ll have the perfect sweetness with jam in the middle. 

We are going to make two biscuits and put jam in the middle. Cookie biscuits & jam is the new PB&J 🙂 The upper biscuit will be cut in a small shape to make the jam shine.  

The surprise part is not the jam tough. We are going to make the cookies with ground hazelnuts to elevate the taste.

Preparation 

You will need toasted hazelnuts, you can buy regular ones and bake them at 180°C in the oven for 15 minutes. You can use a baking sheet. Then you can put them in a food processor to grind. You can use almonds too. 

The other must-have utensil is a cookie cutter. A smooth-edged round would be perfect. If you don’t have it, use what you got. To cut shapes on the cookie you will need a mini butter as well. 

Also, if you have a food processor, use it. 🙂 

Ingredients 

100 grams (a cup) hazelnuts (skinned and toasted)

125 grams (a cup) caster sugar

300 grams (two cups) plain 

200 grams butter (unsalted- cold)

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt

1 large egg (at room temperature)

1 large egg yolk (at room temperature)

icing sugar to dust the cookies

4 tablespoons redcurrant jelly

4 tablespoons raspberry jam (seedless)

Method 

Take out the food processor and put the hazelnut and sugar in. Grind them until they are finely mixed. Add the flour. Mix for a little while. Then cut the butter in pieces and toss them in the processor. Mix, then add the egg, egg yolk, salt and cinnamon. Keep running the processor until you have a fine cookie dough. Be patient and check the dough as you run the processor, it may take a while. When the dough is soft enough, it is ready. 

When the dough is ready, cut it in 4 pieces evenly. Roll them into balls and cover them in  food wraps individually. Put them in the fridge for an hour.  

After an hour, take two of the rolls out of the fridge and rest them for 15 minutes. 

Take one of the dough on the counter and roll it. Roll until it is 3mm thick and cut the dough with the cutter. Count how many pieces you have. 

Then take the other dough piece and repeat the process. These are gonna be the top of the cookies so take your mini cutter and cut the biscuits with shapes in the middle.  If you do not have a mini cutter you can cut the iscuat with a round object like a bottle cap. 

You can use the excessive dough to make more cookies, or you can eat them. 🙂 I prefer to eat. Yummy! 

Set the cookies on a parchment and cook them for 10 minutes at 180°C. Biscuits shall be slightly golden on the eggs. 

Wait for the cookies to be completely cool. 

Now it is time to make them little sandwiches. Dust the cutted cookies with icing sugar. Mix the jam and jelly, stir until smooth. Spread the mixture on the whole cookies and place the sugar dusted cookies on tops. Repeat until all the biscuits are sandwiches. 

Bon appetit! 

Anıl Uzun