cookies with chocolate and marzipan

A delicate and mellow christmas cookie filled with marzipan and covered with chocolate and pistachio nuts. It is a bit costly in preparation but the effort is worth it anyway.

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Makes about 45 cookies

For the dough

• 300 g flour
• 80 g sugar
• 150 g butter
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoon lemon juice

For the filling

• 100 g apricot jam
• 200 g marzipan
• 150 g confectioners sugar

For the frosting

• 100 couverture chocolate
• some chopped pistachios for decoration

Add the flour, the sugar, the (cold) butter, the egg yolks and the lemon juice together and knead with your hands fast into a dough.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for about 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 180° C.

Roll the dough out on flour until it is about 2 mm thick. Use the cutter to cut out circles, re-roll the trimmings until all the dough is used.

Place the circles on a baking sheet and let it rest in a cool place for about 30 minutes.

Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, use the middle shelf of the oven. Transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Heat up the apricot jam and press it through a sieve and place some apricot jam on every second cookie.

Sprinkle the work surface with confectioners sugar.

Knead together the marzipan with some confectioners sugar and press the marzipan so that it is flat.

Roll the marzipan out to a thickness of 3 mm. Cut out circles, the same size like the cookies.

Press the marzipan circles onto the cookies that have been painted with jam. Place the remaining cookies on top and press them lightly together.

Melt the chocolate couverture gently and frost cookies carefully.

Decorate the cookies with the chopped pistachios before the chocolate has fully hardened.

Happy baking!