Linzer karika (lekváros linzer)

The story

Small jam-filled cookies, known in Hungary as linzer or linzer karika, belong to the wider Central European family of Linzer-style cookies that also includes Czech linecké cukroví and Austrian Linzer Augen: two layers of tender butter dough joined by a layer of jam, usually raspberry or apricot, with a small opening cut in the top layer that lets the color of the filling show through. The name “Linzer” comes from the Austrian city of Linz, though over time the cookie itself has become part of holiday tradition far beyond its borders, including all of Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. These cookies are usually part of a larger basket or plate of a dozen or so different small cookies that are baked ahead and kept in tins until Christmas Eve. For Hungarian families in the diaspora, putting together such a “plate of small cookies,” each kind with a different shape and filling, is one of the most visible signs that the holidays are drawing near.