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Easy Healthy Linzer Cookies With a Delicious Berry Chia Jam

With Valentine's day right around the corner, I wanted to share with you a tasty, but also healthy, sweet treat that you can make for your significant other, family members, friends, and/or kids.

Valentine's day is filledddd with goodies that are not very healthy for ya, yes store-bought-chocolate-filled-with-sugar, I'm looking at you.

These healthy vegan and paleo Linzer cookies are a great way to celebrate love without any of the harm.

What says "I love you" more than baking someone a fresh batch of cookies anyway?

In my opinion, freshly baked cookies made with love are theeee ultimate gift. I'll take a batch of healthy cookies over an expensive unmeaningful gift any day of the week.

 

What are Linzer cookies anyway?

I won't give you a super long history lesson because I know you're here for the recipe itself and not history BUT, just in case you are interested in knowing why they're called Linzer cookies continue reading.

I'll be honest, I had to google this, as I had no idea why they were called Linzer cookies in the first place - but the history is actually pretty cool.

Linzer cookies originated in Linz, a city in Austria, way back in the 1600s. It was originally made as a tarte, using almond flour because almonds were easier to come by than wheat flour... but the bakers in Linz decided to be different and began making them into cookies instead of tartes!

The original recipe used black currants as the filling but with time the recipe evolved and now Linzer cookies are made with all kinds of fillings such as raspberry fillings, mixed berries, and even chocolate.

what's the problem with store-bought linzer cookies:

Nowadays you can probably find Linzer cookies in grocery stores and bakeries - especially during the winter holidays. But the problem is, most of these store-bought cookies have yucky ingredients.

Things like:

Enriched bleached wheat flours - damaging to the gut, contain gluten

Artificial food colors - have been linked to hyperactivity in kids among other things

Artificial flavors - who really know what these are?

Soybean oil - industrialized heavily refined oil that leads to inflammation in the body

Refined sugars - probably derived from gmo sources

and sooo many preservatives to keep those cookies looking great while they sit on the shelves.

Sorry to be negative nancy but these things just aren't good for your body. If you care about what you eat, and you care about what goes inside your sacred temple... then you need to pay attention to ingredients. And these ingredients do not belong inside your body.

 

make your own healthy version of linzer cookies

The good news is - you can still enjoy this delicious sweet treat by making your own vegan and paleo healthy linzer cookies at home.

We're using whole clean ingredients that are going to NOURISH your body, not deplete it.

We're using things like: 

• almond flour
• coconut flour
• maple syrup 
• vanilla extract

We're also making our very own homemade mixed berry chia jam that is so easy to make you're going to be shocked! No more buying sugar-filled jellies and jams.

My baby is still too young to eat these, but this is a cookie I definitely will feel good about giving to my kids eventually because I know that it is clean and made with REAL wholesome food.

 

how to make these healthy vegan linzer cookies

This recipe is simple and so fun to make. If you have kids, this is a great recipe to get the kids involved. They can help you cut out the cookie shapes and spread the chia jam. They'll be so proud when they see the end product, and even more proud when they taste HOW good these are.

1. First you're going to add all the dry ingredients into a bowl. Then add the wet ingredients. Mix to form a dough. Roll out the dough and start cutting your desired shapes. Remember, you're only cutting out the hole in the center for HALF of the cookies, the other half remains hole to serve as the base of the sandwich cookies.

For these cookies, I wanted to stick to a valentine's day theme so I used heart shape cut outs but, you can totally get creative and use whichever shape your heart calls for.

These are the cookie cutters that I used from Amazon. I love these stainless steel cutters and have had them for several years now. Just make sure whatever cookie cutter you purchase has multiple sized cutters because you're going to need a smaller cookie cutter to cut the top part of the cookie (which makes it a classic Linzer cookie).

2. Once you've cut out all of the cookies (make sure you have an even number of bases and tops) - you're going to bake the cookies at 350 for 10 minutes.

3. While the cookies are baking - make your homemade mixed berry chia jam! Throw all the ingredients onto a pan, cook over low/medium heat until thick and then puree using a food processor or a hand mixer.

The berry jam is very flexible. I used frozen mixed berries from Trader Joe's but you can use raspberries, blueberries, strawberries... fresh or frozen will work.

4. Once the cookies are done baking, let them cool down to room temperature and then add the chia filling to the base of the cookies. Top with another cookie and you're set!

 

 

You can take it an extra step and dust the top of the cookies with powdered maple sugar or coconut sugar (blend coconut or maple sugar in a blender or coffee grinder to get it really pulverized so that it resembles powdered sugar).

I cheated because I used tapioca powder for these photographs to make it look like powdered sugar. I don't recommend you do that, as the tapioca powder left a strange taste as you bite into the cookies! Just stick to powdered maple or coconut sugar or skip completely. You live and you learn! 😛

All right, there you have it. Insanely delicious, but still very healthy, vegan and paleo Linzer cookies with a homemade berry chia jam in the middle.

So drool worthy!

I hope you get inspired and make these on Valentine's day. Not only are they super cute, but it's a fun way to get the family involved in the kitchen. I'm sure the kids will love to bake these.

If you do make these, don't forget to tag me on instagram so that I can see all of your creations. And also, if it's not too much trouble, come back here and leave an awesome review.

This helps my blog rank on Google and I would be so so so thankful for that.

 

Allrighty friends,

until next week. <3

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Want to see more vegan mango recipes?

raw vegan berry mango frozen fruit cake

vanilla almond cookies with mango chia icing

mango cardamom snack cake

caramelized mango cheesecake ice cream bars

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