linzer cookies

one of our neighbors, gisela, is this sweet little german lady with the coolest accent (think a grandma heidi klum). she just retired, so I wanted to take a little something over to congratulate her. but the problem is... she is an incredible baker & I highly doubted there was any way I could impress her with my mediocre american baking skills.

but as I was looking through around online & in my baking books, I came across this recipe for raspberry linzer cookies, which is a version of the very famous austrian dessert, the linzer torte (& heck, austria & germany are practically the same, right? right?). I've always thought linzer cookies were beautiful, so this was the perfect opportunity to make them.

they were quite a bit of work, I must confess, but they turned out really beautiful & delicious. gisela appreciated the fact that I made something from her home country.
if you would like to give the cookies a try, I basically used this recipe. the dough is the trickiest part - it's hard to roll because it crumbles easily. but in the end, it was worth the effort.