Happy Valentine's Day! It's a chilly, three-day weekend here in the nation's capital, and there's nothing better to stay warm than get a little love in your heart...or these cookies in your tummy! The flavors of chocolate and raspberry come together perfectly in these little sandwich cookies. One of the things I like about this recipe, is that the dough doesn't need to be chilled (I hate having to wait longer than necessary for cookies!). If you don't have a Linzer cookie cutter - all you need is a round biscuit cutter (about 2 1/2") and a smaller cookie cutter of any shape.

Chocolate Linzer Heart Cookies

2 cups butter (cold, cut into pieces)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 pinch salt
Raspberry jam (preferably unseeded)
Powdered sugar (for sprinkling)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In bowl of electric mixer, add butter and sugar and beat until well blended. Add extracts.
Slowly add flour, cocoa powder and salt until a dough forms. If dough seems too dry and crumbly, you can add vodka or amaretto (or milk) just until the dough comes together.
Take half of the dough, and roll out onto a floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out bases of cookies (about 32). Roll out the other half of the dough, and cut out the tops of the cookies, along with the heart cutout (about 32). Reroll dough scraps to cut more cookies.
Bake for about 10-12 minutes, until just golden brown. Cool completely before assembling.
To assemble, first set the tops of the cookies on a cookie sheet and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Then turn the base cookies upside down and add 1 tsp raspberry jam. Place tops onto the bottoms to complete the Linzer cookies.

Yield: about 32 cookies