Sandwich Cookies with Raspberry Jam – Aren’t They Simply Beautiful?

It was right after Christmas. I was alone at home, trying not to go crazy since I hadn’t seen a single soul apart from myself occasionally in the mirror, for two days. And the next day would be my 34. birthday, so I decided to bake myself some beautiful cookies. Yes they were tasty, but more important for me, they were beautiful.

At home, I had a bit of raspberry jam left from the last time I baked my thumbprint cookies. In between cookie baking I do not consume jam myself, I am not really a jam person – except for homemade fig or quince jam. It was good that I had all the ingredients at home; then I did not have to leave home for that day either and I could finally go nuts the next day, jeee!!

This recipe is the one that was published by “Recipe Girl”. I did not make many changes except for using raspberry jam instead of strawberry jam. So you can also check the recipe from the original version (http://www.recipegirl.com/2008/08/10/strawberry-sandwich-cookies/). What you can get in my blog is the step-by-step photos.

Anyway, enough with how I lost it. Back to the cookies. These are nice, crunchy, sort of sweet biscuits actually, rather than cookies. It depends on how much you bake them. The first batch I baked quite a bit so they were crunchy and like biscuits. But the second batch I baked for less amount of time and so they were more like cookies.

These cookies / biscuits stay in good shape in a nicely closed container for about a week or so. And for some reason I see them fit very well with the whole Christmas theme – you know nice shapes, red colour etc etc.. I am still learning about Christmas you know!

So if you want to get beautifully messy, here is a chance for you!!

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Ingredients:

(Makes about 30 cookies)

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp / 90 ml / 85 gr butter, in room temperature
3/4 cup / 180 ml brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp / 5 ml vanilla extract
2 cups / 480 ml white flour
1/8 tsp / 0.5 ml salt

1/2 cup / 120 ml raspberry jam (or you can also use another jam you like)
1/2 cup / 120 ml powdered sugar

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1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Prepare 2 oven trays with baking sheet on them (if you only have 1 tray then you can prepare 1 by 1.

3. Put the butter in a mixing bowl and cream it in medium speed (you can also do it by hand if you don’t have electric mixer). When it is creamy, add brown sugar and continue beating until it gets light and fluffy.

4. While you continue beating the mixture, add egg and vanilla extract and beat altogether until they incorporate.

5. Add salt to the flour and just stir a bit either with your hand or with a whisk, or even with a fork.

6. Add flour and continue beating until it has a crumbly texture. It is enough to beat with a mixer until that point.

7. Put your hand in the mixture and hold it together to form a ball of dough. Cut the ball in half, wrap each half with a stretch film and put them in the refrigerator for an hour to chill.

8. When the dough is chilled, take it out of the refrigerator. Flour your counter or the work surface. Roll both dough into 2 mm thickness each, separately.

9. Cut circles from the first rolled dough. These full circles will be the base of the cookie sandwich. Cut more circles from the second rolled dough. Then cut hearts, stars or any other shape you like in the middle of these circles. You can make new dough from the cut out pieces, roll that, cut more circles and shapes etc until you are left with no more dough.

10. Put the cut pieces on the baking sheet and bake them for 5 minutes. If you bake for 10 minutes they come biscuits. Let the cookies cool completely after you take them out of the oven.

11. When they are completely cool, take the upper part of the sandwiches, I mean the heart and start shaped ones and dust them with powdered sugar completely.

12. Take the lower part of the sandwiches and spread some jam on it. Put just a bit of jam in the centre and that will be enough – if you spread to the whole thing then when you put the upper part, the jam will spill out of the sandwich. Try and see if you like!