In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix the almond meal with ¼ cup of the brown sugar. Be sure to break up any clumps.

In a large bowl with a hand mixer or in a bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and the remaining ¼ cup of brown sugar until incorporated. This mixture won’t get light and fluffy, there is too much butter to sugar.

Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until well incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is fully incorporated.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and gradually add the ground almond mixture until fully incorporated.

Next, add the flour mixture in several additions. Mix until just combined, and be careful not to overmix. Remember to scrape down the sides of the bowl so everything is incorporated!

Divide the dough in half. Shape each half into a disk and wrap it securely in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, which will take at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350°F conventional and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Allow the disks to warm up on the counter until they are still firm but not soft. If you rolled the dough between parchment, you can skip to step 10!

Dust your work surface lightly with bench flour. Roll out each piece of dough to as close to a ⅛-inch thickness as possible. Rolling the dough too thin will result in crunchy cookies that don’t soften nicely once assembled.

Cut the dough with your cookie cutter of choice, and place on a prepared baking sheet. Space the cut pieces of dough one inch apart. Use a smaller cookie cutter, or a paring knife to cut out the centers of half the pieces. Keep your scraps, because you can (and should) re-roll them!

Bake the cookies in the preheated oven, rotating the cookie sheets halfway through. You want to bake until the edges begin to brown, the centers puff slightly, and have small cracks on the surface. For me, this was 8-10 minutes for the bottoms and 6-8 minutes for the tops.

Cool the cookies slightly on the cookie sheet, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

When the tops (the ones with holes) have cooled, dust them generously with powdered sugar.

Spread about ¾ teaspoon of preserves on the flat side of each bottom (the cookies without holes). You can use a little more if you like, but I didn’t want the raspberry flavor to overpower the almond flavor. Spread the preserves until they almost reach the edges!

Place a powdered top on each bottom and press gently to stick them together. You can begin enjoying them immediately, but they continue to improve with time.