Lime Linzer Cookies

Ingre­di­ents

Lime Curd:
• 1/2 cup gran­u­lated sugar
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (3–5 limes,depending on the size of the limes. Zest them first, and then microwave the limes for 30 sec­onds before you juice. You’ll get a lot more juice that way.)
• zest from the above limes (zest before you juice)
• 4 table­spoons unsalted butter-softened
Cookie:
• 1 1/3 cups all pur­pose flour
• 1/3 confectioner’s sugar
• 1 1/2 table­spoon gran­u­lated sugar
• 1/4 tea­spoon table salt
• 1 1/2 sticks cold, unsalted but­ter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• 1 1/2 tea­spoons lime extract–or–9–10 drops lime oil

Instruc­tions

To make lime curd:
1. Com­bine sugar, eggs, juice, and zest in a small, non-reactive sauce pan. (make sure it’s not aluminum)
2. Set over medium-low heat and cook, whisk­ing con­stantly, until mix­ture thick­ens. Should take about 10 minutes.
3. Remove from heat, whisk in but­ter a piece at a time until well com­bined and smooth.
4. Strain through a sieve into a bowl and cover with plas­tic wrap, push­ing the wrap down onto the sur­face of the curd to pre­vent a skin from form­ing on the curd.
5. Chill for at least three hours.
To make cookies:
7. Place flour, con­fec­tion­ers sugar, gran­u­lated sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food proces­sor. Pulse until well com­bined. Add but­ter. Pulse until coarse crumbs form. Add lime extract, (or oil, if using) and pulse to mix. If using lime oil instead of extract, make up the liq­uid dif­fer­ence by adding 1 tea­spoon at this point.
8. Trans­fer the dough to a square of plas­tic wrap on a flat sur­face. Bring the sides of the plas­tic up and over the top of the dough. Using your hands, form a disk shape with the dough. Flat­ten it to about an inch thick. Dough will be very crumbly and loose because the but­ter was so cold. It will seem like it doesn’t want to form together, but it will.
9. Place in the refrig­er­a­tor for a few hours to firm up.
10. Pre­heat oven to 325 degrees F., have ready a bak­ing sheet lines with parch­ment paper, or a sil­pat liner.
11. Remove the dough from the fridge and let sit out for 15 min­utes before rolling. Roll out to an 1/8 inch thick­ness. Use flour to pre­vent stick­ing when necessary.
12. Cut out using your pre­ferred method described in the para­graph above.
13. Bake in a pre-heated 325 degree F. oven for 10–12 min­utes, or until just begin­ning to brown around the edges. Don’t over bake.
14. Let cool on a rack.
Assem­bly:
15. Take an un-cutout bot­tom cookie and spread curd on about 1/4 inch thick, and spread to within 1/4 inch of the edges. Set aside.
16. Take a top cut-out cookie, and sprin­kle with pow­dered sugar. (this is eas­i­est if you just sift sugar over the cookie with a strainer.
17. Place the top cookie on top of the curd and press lightly together.
18. Store in an air­tight con­tainer in the refrig­er­a­tor for 2–3 days.