Spitzbuben

[flea]

Last December my friend Marian brought these to book club. They are wonderful and so very addictive. I have a special sweet tooth for baked goods with ground almonds in them. At the time Marian said the recipe was a family secret, but she has now decided to share! I'm hoping to make them this weekend.

The cookies I had were 1.5 inch round sandwich cookies, with the tops and bottoms coated in powdered sugar, and raspberry preserves between the layers.

Nonna's Spitzbuben -- translated by AnnaGram

Spitzbuben

2 1/4 sticks butter
7/8 cup sugar
5 oz. almonds (not blanched), finely ground
1 Tbs. pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour (or less - need to adjust)
Raspberry preserves (or part chocolate frosting)

Mix ingredients - butter,sugar, vanilla, almonds, then flour. Roll out on a board, make small round shapes, bake until light yellow in moderate oven (375o or less?) for 8 -15 minutes (depends hugely on kind of cookie sheet and oven temp!)

While still warm, dip tops into sugar, and spread flat bottom with jam or chocolate (even both!) and lay another cookie on top.

(These ingredients are translated from German pounds. If you have a gram scale, and keep in mind that 500 grams = 1 German pound, the quantities are:

1/2 lb. butter
200 gr. sugar
1/4 lb. almonds
1/2 stick of vanilla
420 gr. flour - but I use 390 or less)

Comments

[adverbia.livejournal.com]

This sounds similar to the S. American "alfajores" which we make with caramelized milk in between instead of preserves. As I have a lot of company coming this holiday, I'll give these a try. :)