Hazelnut Star Cookies
Ingredients
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 cup hazelnuts, toasted
  • 1 cup butter, room temperature
  • 3 large egg yolks
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • Icing sugar for dusting
  • Filling of your choice. I used the crabapple jelly I made this summer.
Instructions
  1. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
  2. In a food processor, pulse the hazelnuts with 1/4 cup of the flour mixture until fine. Add remaining flour mixture and pulse, then add the butter, and pulse once again to combine into coarse crumbs.*
  3. Place in a bowl and use a fork to blend in egg yolks and vanilla until the dough comes together.**
  4. Shape into two disks, wrap in parchment, and let chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
  5. Remove one disk from fridge and roll between two pieces of parchment paper to 1/8 inch thickness. If it's too stiff to roll, let it sit for a few minutes.
  6. Leave the dough on the parchment, and set it on a cookie sheet. Refrigerate for another 30 minutes or more.
  7. Remove from fridge and cut with cookie cutters. Place on another parchment lined cookie sheet and cut out the centres from every second cookie.
  8. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes at 350F.
  9. Remove from oven and let cool.
  10. Dust tops of the star-shaped cookies with icing sugar.
  11. Put filling on bottom cookie, and gently set the star cookie on top. Don't press or it will break.
  12. Let sit for at least a couple of hours or even over night.
Notes
*I don't have a "real" food processor so I used my trusty (vintage) pastry cutter and it worked just fine.**I also found that once the butter and egg were added, I had to (gently) knead the dough to get it to come together (very similar to making pie crust).

*recipe adapted from Martha Stewart
Recipe by Keeping With The Times at https://www.keepingwiththetimes.com/hazelnut-star-cookies/