Cream butter in the bowl of an electric mixer for 1 minute at medium speed.

Add sugar and cream for another 2 minutes.

Add egg, vanilla, almond extract, mix until combined.

Add flour and salt, mix with a spatula to combine and form a dough.

The dough will be soft and sticky.

Wrap it around with plastic wrap or place it in a plastic bag and shape it into a disk.

Place it in the fridge for 2 hours.

Remove from the fridge and divide the dough into 4 parts.

Work with one piece at a time.

Roll it out until about 1/4 inch thick.

Cut with whatever shape you desire. I used a 3 inch cutter to shape my cookies, and a small star and a flower cutter for the inside.

I cut holes in the shape of stars and flowers in the middle of half of the cookies. You can use any shape you like, or use the large side of a piping tip to cut out a round shape.

Place each cookie in a baking sheet lined with parchment or silicone mat.

The cookies can be placed about 1 inch apart, since they won’t spread out much.

Place the cookie tray in the fridge or in the freezer for 10-15 minutes for the cookies to harden up again.

This will help the cookies maintain a nice shape and structure when they bake.

While you bake some trays, keep rolling out and cutting out more cookies.

Pre-heat oven to 350ºF.

Bake each cookie tray for 10 minutes, until lightly browned on top.

Remove and let the cookies cool.

Cream the butter with an electric mixer for about 30 seconds at medium speed.

Add the sugar and salt to the butter and cream for another minute.

Add the egg yolks, one at a time, creaming until each egg yolk is incorporated before adding the next one.

Pour the passion fruit pulp in the bowl and mix. Mixture will seem curdled and separated, and that’s ok.

Transfer it to a small saucepan.

Start cooking at low heat, stirring non-stop with a spatula.

Keep cooking for 5-10 minutes. Don’t let the mixture boil, and don’t stop stirring.

The curd should be thick, coating the back of a spoon.

Depending on how high or low the heat is, the time will vary. I suggest keeping at low, or medium-low heat. You don’t want the eggs to boil, and you don’t want the mixture to stick to the bottom of the pan, which will easily happen if the heat is too high, or if you stop stirring.

Once the curd is ready, pour it into a heat-proof bowl, and let it cool down.

Place it in the fridge for at least 6 hours to chill through and get thick.

Place passion fruit curd (or any jam filling you might want to use) in a piping bag. Or you can use a spoon to spoon some filling on the middle of each whole cookie.

If placing the curd in the piping bag, pipe a small amount of filling in the middle of each cookie.

Top with a cookie with a hole in the middle.

You can also dust the top cookies with powdered sugar before placing them on top of the cookie sandwich.

Other options are to drizzle the top of the cookies with white or regular chocolate.

The dough will store nicely in the freezer for up to 2 months if well packaged. If you freeze the dough, remove a day before and let it thaw in the fridge before rolling it out and shaping the cookies.

The assembled cookies will last in the fridge for up to 4 days.