Baking Cookies

Ingredients
Dough:
2 1/2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unblanched almonds, finely ground
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
10 ounces (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar

To decorate:
1 cup unsifted powdered sugar
2/3 cup raspberry jam

Method
Cream butter and granulated sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes. In a separate small bowl, combine the flour, ground almonds, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Incorporate flour mixture into butter mixture and combine well.

Cut ball of dough into thirds. Place each piece of dough between two sheets of wax paper and roll out until quite thin--about 1/8 of an inch. Refrigerate until firm, about an hour.

Preheat your oven to 350 F and place a rolled portion of dough on your work surface. Peel away the top layer of wax paper. Use a round cookie cutter (about 2 inches in diamter) to cut out your rounds, and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. For half of the rounds, to create the tops of the cookies, use a small cutter to cut out the middle.

(Little shapes look quite pretty, but if you don't have small cutters like that, you can use a straw to cut out three small holes in the middle of the round.)

Bake for about 10 minutes, or until just slightly golden. Remove from oven and let cool on the sheet for a few minutes; then transfer to a cooling rack. When the tops are cool, sprinkle with icing sugar.

When you are ready to fill your cookies, flip over each bottom piece and place about 1/4 tsp of raspberry jam in the middle. Top with the top part of the cookie to create the sandwich.

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