Crisp cookies with a lovely lemony flavor; the ginger is not very pronounced but just gives them character.

Big-smile cookies in the grand ol-fashioned style.

And finally I get to use that cookie cutter set I got for Christmas :-) This recipe is from "Big Fat Cookies", the hilariously titled cookie recipe collection with lovingly made Big American cookies: chocolate chip, macaroons, sandwiches and the like. Over here, they be titled "grand" cookies, an' rightly so.

While rolling the dough I realised it is so very long ago that I made this type of cookie - the cut-out kind - I wonder why? This is definitely a do-again project. I followed the recipe here, but it's so easy to come up with variants of your own: a thick jam or curd filling, or maybe my cream cheese frosting for carrot cake could work? (Carrot/Mon Chou cookies, hmm; we'll get back to you on that).

Mixing the cookie dough

Prepare the almonds by toasting them on a tray in the oven for about 15 minutes (160°C). Let them cool before grounding them up with a kitchen machine.

Sift flour, ginger, cinnamon and salt in one bowl and set aside. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl at medium speed until the butter is creamy. Mix in the lemon zest, vanilla and ground almonds. Then add the flour mixture and mix it in until the dough holds together. Divide the dough into two thick flat disks that fit on a dinner plate. Separate and cover those with cling foil and refrigerate for about 40 minutes, or until the dough is firm enough to roll.

Start rollin'

Turn the oven on again to preheat to 160°C. Line the baking sheets you'll be using with parchment paper.

Lightly flour the rolling surface and the rolling pin. Unwrap the dough and roll one disk carefully into a slab of about 5 to 6 mm thickness. Use a round cookie cutter with scalloped edges to cut out big circles from the dough. Transfer those onto the baking sheet with a wide spatula. Place the circles not closer than 2 cm apart, they will not spread much. Gather all the scraps, roll, and use up that dough too. Repeat with the second disk of refrigerated dough.

From half of the dough circles, cut out a 2 cm shape or circle from the centre.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time

Keeping the oven at 150 - 160°C, bake the cookies about 17 to 20 minutes. Watch them carefully during those last minutes, as there is a small window of time in which they are in that perfect crisp light brown state you'll want them in. The cut-out tops will brown quicker than the bottoms. Cool the cookies for about 5 minutes before transferring them with a wide spatula onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the filling, and assemble the sandwich cookies

Mix the butter and the powdered sugar; add the lemon zest and lemon juice, and beat on medium speed until smooth. Pick up a cooled cookie without a hole. Using a breakfast knife, spread about two tablespoons of filling on its bottom side, to a thickness of a few millimeters. Leave a tiny edge clear of filling. Even out the top surface. Then carefully press one of the cookies with a hole onto the filling. Press to spread the filling up to the edge, but not over.
Store in the refrigerator.

It seems these cookies will keep for a few days, but I haven't been in the position to check that yet :-) Grand cookies.