Linzer Biscuits
I set myself a challenge this season. To promote my Christmas anthology (The Unconquered Sun: Tales of Yule, Christmas and the Winter Solstice) , I’m making one recipe per story from the particular country that story is set in. Today I made Linzer biscuits.
Named after the city of Linz in Austria, Linzer cookies/biscuits are a popular Christmas delicacy in Austria and the US. They are descended from the ‘Linzertorte’ which is a lattice-crust tart filled with preserves dating back to at least the 17th century. It is unknown when the more modern ‘sandwich cookie’ versions started to appear but they made their way to America with Austrian and German immigrants in the mid-19th century. Similar to the UK’s Jammie Dodger, the Linzer biscuit is two layers of buttery almond dough with a shape cut in the centre of the top layer to reveal the jam/preserve within.
In my story ‘Krampus Unchained’ (set in Austria, 1741), four squabbling children unwittingly release Saint Nicholas’s demonic servant and are forced to work together to fix things. Krampus is a rather frightening figure from Alpine folklore who acts as a servant to Saint Nicholas as he brings gifts to children on December 6th (Nikolaustag). Possibly incorporating pre-Christian elements, Krampus is depicted as a hairy, long-tongued demon weighed down by chains (representing the binding of the devil by the Church). He carries a basket on his back and bundle of birch twigs with the implication that bad children will be punished and/or carried off. He is just one of many helpers to Saint Nicholas depicted in European folklore. Some of the others who fulfill near identical functions include Belsnickel of southwestern Gemany and Zwarte Piet of the Netherlands.
A 1900s greeting card depicting Krampus
‘Krampus Unchained’ is one of seven short stories in the anthology The Unconquered Sun: Tales of Yule, Christmas and the Winter Solstice which explores various Christmas traditions from around the world. It is available from Amazon and all profits go to Save the Children UK.
