Double Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

I thought I had a photo of these, but I guess I forgot to take one. You can see what they look like Here. I got them from the magazine, but they are also on Epicurious.


For dough
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For ganache
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
3/4 pound fine-quality white chocolate, melted
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Equipment: a 1 3/4-inch fluted round cookie cutter
Garnish: decorative sugar (optional)
Preparation

Make dough:
Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.

Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, then beat in yolk and vanilla. At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches just until a dough forms. Divide dough in half and form each piece into a 6-inch square, then chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, 2 to 3 hours.

Make ganache while dough chills:
Bring cream and corn syrup just to a simmer in a small heavy saucepan, then stir into melted chocolate. Stir in butter and vanilla until smooth. Cover surface with parchment paper and chill, stirring occasionally, until very thick, about 30 minutes.

Cut and bake cookies:
Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter 2 large baking sheets.

Roll out 1 piece of dough between sheets of parchment paper into a 14- by 10-inch rectangle (1/8 inch thick). Slide dough in parchment onto a tray and freeze until dough is firm, about 10 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough.

Cut out as many rounds as possible from first chilled square with cutter, reserving and chilling scraps, then quickly transfer cookies to a buttered baking sheet, arranging them 1/2 inch apart. (If dough becomes too soft, return to freezer until firm.)

Sprinkle half of cookies with decorative sugar (if using), then bake cookies until baked through and slightly puffed, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on sheet on rack 5 minutes, then transfer to rack to cool completely (cookies will crisp as they cool).

Make more cookies with remaining dough and scraps (reroll only once).

Assemble sandwich cookies:
Beat ganache with an electric mixer at high speed just until light and fluffy. Transfer to a sealable plastic bag (snip off 1/8 to 1/4 inch from 1 corner with scissors). Pipe ganache onto flat sides of plain cookies, then top with sugared cookies to make sandwiches. Chill, layered between sheets of parchment, in an airtight container until filling is set, at least 1 hour.

Cook's notes:
• Dough can be chilled up to 2 days.
• Ganache can be made 1 day ahead and chilled, its surface covered with parchment. Bring to room temperature, then beat with mixer before using.
• Sandwiched cookies keep, chilled, 4 days.

These came from a copy of Gourmet magazine . that cookbad sent me from the States. What a great magazine! This was the Christmas cookie issue, and it had so many amazing looking cookies, I hardly knew where to start.

I chose these because of their double chocolate-ness. I couldn’t resist.

The recipe looks pretty complicated, and I’m not going to pretend that it’s a quick and simple one, but if you just get into the idea of doing it in phases, then it’s no big deal.

I left the dough to sit in the fridge for much longer then it said to because I made the dough before going out in the morning. It’s fine to do that, but you have to keep in mind that you’ll have to let it warm up a bit before it is soft enough to roll. That actually worked out even better for me because although it was really hard to roll, I was able to roll them out, cut them and transfer them to a baking sheet without having to re-chill the dough.

The cookies come out really beautifully crispy and light.

Then the filling… my advice to you is to use the best quality white chocolate you can find. I skimped a bit, and I felt like it made a difference to the quality. They were still really good cookies, but they could have been even better.

I don’t have a piping bag, so I used a freezer bag with the corner cut off. That worked really well. Using a spoon, did not. I only did that for one cookie.

I will definitely make these again, they were like fancy Oreo cookies.