Pistachio Linzer Cookies With Orange Marmalade
Updated Dec. 6, 2022

- Total Time
- 1 hour 15 minutes, plus chilling
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2cups raw pistachios (285 grams)
- 1½cups (339 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1¾cups confectioners’ sugar (128 grams)
- 1large egg
- 1teaspoon orange-blossom water
- 2cups all-purpose flour (276 grams)
- 1cup cornstarch (152 grams)
- 1½teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1teaspoon orange zest
- ½teaspoon grated nutmeg
- ½teaspoon fine sea salt
- ⅛teaspoon ground clove
- 1cup orange marmalade
Preparation
- Step 1
In a food processor, finely grind the pistachios. Add the butter and 1 cup sugar and pulse to combine. Pulse in the egg and orange-blossom water.
- Step 2
In a small bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, cinnamon, orange zest, nutmeg, salt and clove. Add to the food processor and pulse until the mixture forms a moist dough. Divide dough in half and flatten each half into a disk. Wrap tightly with plastic and refrigerate 4 to 6 hours.
- Step 3
Place parchment paper on three large baking sheets. (If you don’t have three, roll out the dough in smaller batches and keep the rest refrigerated.) Take one disk of dough and roll it out on a floured surface to ¼-inch thickness. Cut into 3-inch rounds, and transfer to a prepared baking sheet. Use a 1½-inch cutter to stamp out a hole from the center of half (not all) of the cookies (this will form the “window” for the cookies). Transfer the smaller cookies to a prepared sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough. Gently combine and reroll any scraps. You will have three shapes of cookies on the cookie sheets: rings, large round cookies and small round cookies. Wrap each tray with plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Step 4
Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Bake cookies until just golden, about 15 minutes for the small rounds, and 18 to 22 minutes for the larger cookies. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Step 5
Put the marmalade in a microwave-safe bowl; microwave for 20 seconds and stir, until it's warm and easier to spread. Or heat slowly in a small pot over low heat. Spread each large round cookie with marmalade. Top with a large ring-shaped cookie. Spread half the small round cookies with marmalade and top with the remaining small round cookies. Generously dust all cookies with the rest of the confectioners' sugar.
Private Notes
Comments
I've been making this recipe since it was originally published. Very exotic flavor; I recommend using bitter orange marmalade which offsets the sweetness of the cookie. The recipe takes a long time to make but well worth the effort. Excellent gift cookie. Yields more than the 27 cookies listed here.
The best! I use rhubarb jam and it's great with pistachio.
This is a great recipe but I find the orange marmalade to be lacking, which may account for some of the non favorable reviews. I made the cookies much smaller, about 1 3/4 inch and 1/8 inch thick, added 1/4 tsp of ground cardamom, reduced the bake time to 10min. I filled some with the orange marmalade and some with the more traditional raspberry jam. The raspberry filling provided the perfect foil for the cookie and heightened all the flavors. Go raspberry.
The weights and measures didn’t seem accurate. My 1c of corn starch weighed a lot less than the recipe said. The same with flour and powdered sugar. The first time I made these, they came out fine. This time I had to add flour and corn starch to a dough that was too wet since I compromised on the measurements.
I have made many linzer cookie recipes over the years and this works very well. I appreciate the lightness that the starch offers. My cookie cutter is smaller, about 2", and I roll the dough between plastic wrap and wax paper, lightly floured, about 1/8 inch. I also cut the recipe in half to make it more manageable. Lightly flouring the surface before rolling has been my key to success with linzer cookies. I use any nuts and jam available.
This sounds great, but a cup of cornstarch? I’m hesitant to try. Can anyone confirm this is actually the right amount of cornstarch?
