Ginger Heart-Shaped Cookies

Ingredients

• 140 g soft butter
• 100 g sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 orange (unprocessed)
• 1 piece fresh ginger
• 200 g Flour
• 100 g Ground Almonds
• 100 g orange marmalade (or apricot-),
• orange liqueur (optional)
• 200 g powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp Orange juice
• 30 g candied ginger

Instructions

1. 1.

   For the dough, cream the butter. Then alternately fold in sugar and egg yolks. Add salt with grated orange zest. Squeeze the orange and stir in 1 tbsp of the juice; set aside the remaining juice. Peel the ginger and grate about ¼ tsp over the mixture to taste. Mix flour with almonds, add a little more and fold in; work the rest into the dough with a pastry cutter. Quickly knead everything into a dough and cover it for about 1 hour in the refrigerator.

2. 2.

   Roll the dough out to a thickness of roughly a knife blade, cut out hearts, place on a plate or similar, and chill again for about 10 minutes.

3. 3.

   Preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 °F). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

4. 4.

   Place the cookies on the sheet, bake for 8–12 minutes until golden yellow, then cool on a wire rack.

5. 5.

   For the filling, heat the jam in a double boiler, optionally puree. Stir in some orange liqueur if desired. Assemble each pair of cookies with jam.

6. 6.

   For the glaze, sift powdered sugar into enough orange juice to make a thick coating. Slice ginger into fine strips. Glaze the cookies, garnish with ginger strips, and let dry at room temperature.