A great recipe for the Walnut Basket dough! This crumbly, crumbly dough is truly the perfect base for this popular Christmas cookie.

Based on the ingredients, this is a typical, crumbly dough (linzer dough), which is so delicious, soft and manageable because of the lots of margarine and egg yolks.

🧺 Walnut Basket Dough (Shortbread Base) – The Traditional Recipe
Ingredients:
Ingredient Quantity
Flour (fine) $50\ \text{dkg}$
Powdered sugar $12\ \text{dkg}$
Baking powder $1\ \text{package}$
Egg yolks $5\ \text{pcs}$
Vanilla sugar $1\ \text{package}$
Grated lemon zest $1/2\ \text{lemon}$
Salt $1\ \text{pinch}$
Margarine (or butter) $30\ \text{dkg}$
Milk (cold) A little (if needed)
Preparation (The Kneading):

Dry ingredients: In a large bowl, mix together the flour, powdered sugar, baking powder, vanilla sugar, a pinch of salt, and grated lemon zest.
Melting the butter: Add the cold, cubed margarine/butter. Cut it into the flour in quick movements until you get a fine, crumbly texture. It is important to work quickly so that the butter stays cold!
Egg yolks: Add the $5\ \text{pcs}$ egg yolks.

Knead and loosen: Knead the dough quickly. As you mentioned, if the dough doesn’t want to come together or seems too stiff, add cold milk drop by drop – but really only as much as is needed to just come together.
Resting: Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (but $1\ \text{hour}$ is even better). Cold dough is much easier to handle and less sticky.
Still missing the Nut Filling and Assembly!
To complete the recipe, I will also prepare the classic walnut filling that is usually put in the baskets:

II. Walnut Filling
Ingredient Quantity
Ground walnuts $20\ \text{dkg}$
Icing sugar $15\ \text{dkg}$
Milk $1.5\ \text{dl}$
Rum or rum flavoring $1\ \text{ek}$ (to taste)
Apricot jam $2\ \text{ek}$
Preparing the Filling:

Boil the milk with the powdered sugar.
Pour the hot, sweet milk over the ground walnuts. Mix well, let stand for a minute.
Stir in the rum/rum flavoring and the apricot jam. (If you find it too thin, you can add a little more walnuts or crushed biscuits.)

III. Assembly and Baking
Divide the rested dough into small balls and press them into the metal basket molds.
Bake the empty baskets at $180\ ^{\circ}\text{C}$ for $10-15$ minutes. Let them cool to lukewarm, then carefully remove from the mold.
Fill the base with the walnut filling and top with half a walnut or decorate with chocolate.
I hope they are delicious!