Chocolate Cream-Filled Sandwiches

My husband seems to have developed quite the sweet tooth recently. Right after lunch he says, "Let's make dessert!" He forgets that he is blessed with an insanely active metabolism, whereas I have to actually work to maintain my figure. Alas, I gave in, and we made these cookies that he wanted to try. After this, it's to the gym for me!

Chocolate Cream-Filled Sandwiches
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Prep: 30 minutes / Bake: 8 minutes
Yield: about 2 dozen

1-1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1-1/2 cups sugar
10 T unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg, room temperature
Vanilla Creme Filling (recipe below)

1. Preheat oven to 375. Sift together first 5 ingredients into a bowl.

2. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg; beat to combine. With mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture and beat until well combined.

3. Using a small scoop, drop dough onto parchment paper lined baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Flatten dough between palms and sprinkle with additional sugar.

4. Bake 10-12 minutes until cookies are slightly firm. Transfer baking sheets to a wire cooling rack.

Vanilla Cream Filling
Prep: 10 minutes

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 T vanilla

1. With an electric mixer, cream butter. Gradually add powdered sugar with mixer on low speed; continue beating until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and beat to combine.

2. Pipe filling onto the underside of half the cookies, place remaining cookies on top of the filling.

My Review

• Preparation: 4
• This recipe took a little less than an hour start to finish. My husband and I worked together, it was fun!
• Taste: 4
• These were really good. However, they were a bit on the crunchy side, we baked them for 9 minutes. Good news is, after keeping them covered overnight, the cookies softened! Now they are perfect, which makes them more unresistable...
• Cost: 5
• We didn't have to buy any ingredients, so I'll give it a 5.
• Clean-up: 3
• Two big bowls, lots of measuring gadgets, baking sheet (and my husband) ;)
• Changes
• We did the recipe in half because we didn't have enough butter for the whole batch.
• The recipe called for Dutch-process cocoa powder, we didn't have any so we used our normal Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder.
• The recipe called for half butter and half shortening for the filling, e didn't have any shortening for the filling, so we just replaced that with butter. The shortening would just make the filling more white, less of a butter color. And slightly less butter flavor too, but ours was yummy.
• The recipe said to drop the cookies on the baking sheet. Then dip the bottom of a glass in sugar and press to flatten cookies to about 1/8 inch thick. (You may need to carefully remove dough from glass with a thin spatula). I'm like, that's crazy! First of all, why would the sugar stick to the glass? And I'm not about to scrape each cookie off the bottom of a cup! So we gently pressed them between our palms and sprinkled them with sugar.
• Our cookies got much flatter and wider than they looked in the picture, and I don't think we made them too big of dollops. Mine don't look perfect but they still taste good!
• Summary
• These cookies were fun to make and they look pretty with the piped filling. Great with a glass of milk!