The lemon curd-filled shortbread cookies are made from coconut shortbread cookies, made with a cookie recipe very similar to linzer cookies and pâte sucrée. Traditionally linzer cookies are made with ground almond, so we replaced it with ground coconut and filled the cookies with lemon curd before sandwiching them together.

For this recipe, you will need lemon curd. I highly suggest learning how to make homemade lemon curd and using that for these cookies. The flavour is unmatched! These cookies have a similar vibe to the classic jam-filled shortbread cookies that everybody loves.

What You Need to Make These Lemon Coconut Cookies

These lemon linzer cookies are made from simple ingredients, but here are a few things to note about them:

• butter—I used unsalted butter. If using salted butter, you may want to adjust the amount of salt you add later or the cookies may be too salty
• sugar—I used granulated sugar to give these cookies the sandy texture that I love in shortbread cookies
• eggs, for the egg yolk—I used a large egg for the yolk. The yolk usually weighs 16–18 grams
• ground coconut—use finely ground coconut (also called coconut for macaroons) or grind shredded coconut using the pulse function on a food processor or a spice grinder to get a finer texture (similar to ground almond if you can). Do not over-process the coconut because it may turn to "coconut butter"
• salt—I use Diamond Crystal Fine Kosher Salt. If using table salt, add half the amount because the cookies might be too salty otherwise.
• flour—I always bake with bleached all-purpose flour, but unbleached will likely work fine in this recipe
• lemon curd—I prefer to use homemade lemon curd but store-bought will also work in a pinch. Use the best you can afford!

Please see the recipe card for the exact ingredients and quantities.

Variations and Other Fillings to Try

In the shortbread cookie, the most obvious variation you can try is replacing the ground coconut with your favourite ground nut. Ground pistachio would be excellent, for example!

This recipe will also work well with a variety of fillings:

• Other fruit curds—passion fruit curd to make passion fruit coconut cookies or grapefruit curd grapefruit coconut cookies (this is a surprisingly excellent combination)
• Jams, like this classic strawberry jam
• Marmalades, like this three fruit marmalade or a classic orange marmalade. Even lime marmalade would be really interesting with the coconut!
• Chocolate—milk chocolate ganache or dark chocolate ganache (make sure the ganache is set and thick so you can pipe between two cookies using a piping bag) to make chocolate coconut cookies
• Caramel—this dulce de leche, which I've used to fill alfajores will also work great here

How to Make Lemon Curd-Filled Cookies

If you are using homemade lemon curd to make these lemon coconut cookies, make the curd at least 1 day ahead to ensure it has fully set and thickened.

Step 1: Combine the butter and sugar in a stand mixer bowl (image 1) and mix until light and creamy before adding the egg yolk and salt (image 2). Add the coconut (image 3).

Step 2—Add the flour (image 4) and stir until the coconut dough comes together (image 5). Then divide the dough into two equal pieces, pat into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap (image 6) to chill until firm.

Step 3—Roll out the cookie dough, one disk at a time, between sheets of parchment paper or on a floured surface. It's forgiving. Reroll the scraps as you go, chilling when the dough is too soft. Cut out cookies using round or fluted cookie cutters and a set of stars or hearts to cut the windows (image 7). You will need 24 bottoms and 24 tops with a window. Chill the cutouts thoroughly before baking to minimize the cookies spreading. Use a pastry brush to brush off any excess flour before baking.

Tip: This dough is very rich so it will be hard to work with when very cold, but also very delicate as it warms up. The good news is that you can press it together if it cracks or tears. You can chill the dough after rolling it out before cutting it, to make it easier to work with. Use a mini offset spatula to unstick any cookies that get stuck.

Step 4—Transfer the chilled cookies to a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them out and staggering them (image 8). You should be able to fit 8, if not 12 cookies per half sheet pan. I find the bake is more even if you bake all the bottom cookies separately from all the top window cookies (which can take a minute less to bake without browning too much). As you can see in image 9, when baking the top and bottom cookies on the same pan, the baking can be a little uneven.

Step 5—Once the cookies have cooled, flip over the bottom cookies to reveal the underside and top each with a dollop of lemon curd. Top each with a window cookie, twisting to spread the filling to the edges. Refrigerate to set so the filling firms up sufficiently before serving.

Other Sandwich Cookies

Sandwich cookies take a little more time, but they are definitely worth it! Here are a few other sandwich cookie recipes to try:

If you tried this recipe for the best lemon coconut cookies (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Lemon Coconut Cookies

Learn how to make the most delicious lemon coconut cookies with this recipe. These coconut shortbread cookies are sandwiched together with homemade lemon curd.

Course Dessert

Cuisine Austrian

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 11 minutes minutes

Chill time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 41 minutes minutes

Servings 24 sandwich cookies

Calories 147kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• OXO balloon whisk
• Heart cutters
• Rolling pin
• Sheet pan

Ingredients

• 173 grams unsalted butter softened
• 100 grams granulated sugar
• 1.25 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 1 large egg yolk(s)
• 55 grams ground coconut store-bought or made in a spice grinder from shredded unsweetened coconut
• 188 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 250 mL lemon curd

Metric - US

Instructions

• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle, cream together the butter and sugar until it is creamy and soft.
• Add the salt and the egg yolk, and beat it until it is very well mixed, scraping down the sides as needed with a spatula.
• Beat in the ground coconut, mix well, then add the flour. Mix on low until the dough forms. Divide the dough in two, pat into disks, wrap in plastic, and chill for about 1 hour.
• Preheat the oven to 350 °F (175 °C). Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment.
• Roll out one disk of dough to a thickness of about ¼"-⅛" (not too thick, but not too thin). Cut out 2¼ inch (5.7 cm) circles with the dough, re-rolling the scraps to cut out more circles. You will end up with about 24 cutouts. Chill them on parchment-lined sheets for at least 15 minutes (30 minutes is better), then bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges begin to brown a little. Let cool 1 minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
• Repeat the rolling and cutting with the 2nd disk of dough to make 24 more circles, but this time, cut out a window with a small heart cutter or another small circle cookie cutter. Chill and bake as before. You should now how 24 top cookies with windows and 24 bottom cookies to make sandwiches.
• When the cookies are cool, dollop a scant teaspoon of curd on the centre of each bottom cookie and top with a window cookie, twisting gently to glue them together.

Notes

• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• You can replace the coconut with any finely ground nuts. Ground pistachio would be wonderful in this recipe with the lemon curd filling!
• You can use many fillings to sandwich between these cookies, not just lemon curd:
  • other fruit curds, like passion fruit or grapefruit curd
  • jams, like classic strawberry jam
  • marmalades, like three fruit marmalade, orange marmalade, or even lime marmalade
  • chocolate ganache, like milk chocolate ganache or dark chocolate ganache (after setting)
• Please note that I bake with uncoated aluminum sheet pans that are light in colour. If you are baking this recipe with darker bakeware, you may have to drop the oven temperature to 325 °F (165 °C) to prevent your baked goods from browning too quickly.

Nutrition

Calories: 147kcal | Carbohydrates: 17g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.3g | Cholesterol: 24mg | Sodium: 57mg | Potassium: 23mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 10g | Vitamin A: 191IU | Vitamin C: 0.03mg | Calcium: 5mg | Iron: 0.5mg

The post Lemon Curd Shortbread Cookies appeared first on The Bake School.

While butter tarts and Nanaimo bars are classic desserts baked across Canada, maple leaf cookies are more popular in the East. They are THE cookie that Quebec children eat growing up.

The company Dare is known for their maple sandwich cookies, sold at grocery stores in Quebec and parts of Canada. The cookies are shaped like maple leaves and sandwiched together with a sweet maple cream filling. You could say that maple leaf cookies are kind of like the Canadian maple-flavoured cousin of the famous chocolate sandwich cookie known as the Oreo®.

What you will need to make this recipe

To make these, there are two components: shortbread cookies and a maple filling. Like most shortbread cookie recipes, you don't need many ingredients to make these maple shortbread cookies, nor the maple butter filling:

• butter is needed to make the cookie dough and the maple cream filling; use unsalted butter, though salted butter could work, but then skip the salt
• maple sugar adds sweetness and maple flavour to the cookies and the filling
• egg yolk helps bind the ingredients of the dough together, making it easier to roll, but you can replace it with 30 mL (2 tablespoons of whole milk)
• all-purpose flour gives these cookies structure so that they hold their shape and don't spread as they bake
• salt, preferably Diamond Crystal kosher salt is necessary to balance out the sweet maple filling—if using table salt, you may want to halve the salt to avoid these cookies being too salty
• maple butter, also called maple cream, either homemade or store-bought adds a ton of maple flavour to the filling. Remember maple butter is 100 % pure maple syrup, and you should not to confuse it with maple-flavoured butter that is a compound butter flavoured with maple sugar, maple syrup or even maple extract.

Chilling the maple shortbread cookie dough

If you make these cookies in the winter months, when it's not so warm, you should be able to roll out the dough and cut out the cookies, without trouble. Once cut out, you should chill the cutout cookies on a parchment-lined sheet pan in order to prevent the cookies from spreading when they bake. The key to sandwich cookies is that the dough has to hold the shape as they bake so that the cookies line up nicely when you sandwich two together with a filling.

Alternatively, if your kitchen is warm, you may want to chill the dough for 30 minutes to an hour so that the butter in it is firm. Then you may have to chill the cut out cookies again before baking to ensure they hold their shape.

Chilling the cut cookies before baking also makes it easier to cleanly score the cookies. Adding the leaf vein patterns that make the cookies look like real maple leaves is optional.

Making a maple cream cookie filling

The maple filling is just like a simple maple-flavoured American buttercream or frosting. Many recipes for maple leaf cookies rely on powdered sugar (also called icing sugar) to achieve a thick consistency. But this can lead to a cloyingly sweet filling where the maple flavour is muted. For this recipe, we rely on maple butter and maple sugar (a fine granulated sugar that is 100 % maple) to achieve the consistency. The texture of the filling will seem a little gritty, but that's okay. Upon storage, the maple filling will dry out further (in a good way), leading to a texture similar to an Oreo sandwich cookie filling.

Assembling the sandwich cookies is a little tedious and there doesn't seem to be a faster route. To save time, place all the shortbread cookies on a sheet pan, flipping half to expose the underside. Then place teaspoons of filling on the exposed underside of all of the flipped cookies, then sandwich them all. By doing a task at a time for all the cookies, you will save some time.

Baking with maple syrup

You will likely notice the absence of maple syrup in this maple cookie recipe. That's because maple syrup contains some water, and isn't ideal for incorporating in cookies and frostings. Instead, we are relying on pure maple sugar (made by boiling down maple syrup to crystallize it) and maple butter (a pure maple spread made from whipped crystallized maple syrup). Both of these ingredients are better suited for incorporating in cookies and frostings/fillings.

Baking with maple syrup can be tricky, which is why it's great to have other pure maple products to use, when the syrup isn't the most suited for the job.

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Maple Cream Cookies

Learn how to make maple leaf cookies, also called maple cream cookies with maple shortbread cookies and a maple butter filling.

Course Dessert

Cuisine Canadian

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 13 minutes minutes

Chill time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 58 minutes minutes

Servings 28 cookies

Calories 152kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan mixer
• GIR spatula
• Mini offset
• Maple leaf cutters

Ingredients

Maple shortbread cookies

• 178 grams unsalted butter softened
• 100 grams maple sugar
• 1 large egg yolk(s)
• 310 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt

Maple cream filling

• 78 grams unsalted butter softened
• 170 mL maple butter
• 75 grams maple sugar

Metric - US

Instructions

Maple shortbread cookies

• In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and the maple sugar for several minutes.
• Add the egg yolk, and mix to combine, scraping down the bowl as needed.
• Stir in the flour and salt with the mixer on low, scraping the bowl as needed so that the butter mixture is incorporated with all the flour. Continue mixing until the dough holds together when pressed.
• Divide the dough into two equal disks. If your kitchen is warm, you may have to chill the dough for 30 minutes at this stage to help the butter firm up. If so, wrap both disks in plastic wrap to chill. Otherwise, only wrap half in plastic wrap to prevent drying while you work with the rest.
• Roll out the first disk of dough on a lightly floured surface until it's ⅛" thick. Cut into the maple leaf shapes with a 2¼ inch cookie cutter. Re-roll the scraps. Transfer all the cookies to a parchment-lined sheet pan. You should be able to fit about 15 per sheet, and between the two disks of dough, you will likely cut out about 56 maple shortbread cookies (to make 28 sandwich cookies).
• Refrigerate for 15 minutes before baking while you preheat the oven.
• Preheat the oven to 350°F (175 °C).
• Once the cutout cookies are cold, using a pairing knife, score the cookies to create the vein patterns of the leaves on the surface of the cookies. This is optional but makes the leaf cookies more realistic, just like the commercial cookies. Don't cut through the dough, just score the surface of it.
• Bake until the edges begin to brown lightly, 13–15 minutes, rotating if necessary partly through the baking time so that the edges brown evenly.
• Let cool completely on a wire rack before sandwiching the cookies with filling.

Maple cream filling

• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until it is creamy and smooth.
• Add the maple butter and maple sugar, and continue beating the mixture until it is light, fluffy, and smooth. This takes several minutes so be patient. Make sure to scrape down the bowl sides periodically to make sure all the ingredients are properly mixed. Use immediately.

Assembly

• When the cookies have cooled and the maple cream cream filling is ready, spread a teaspoon of the filling on the underside of a maple leaf cookie, and top with another, pressing lightly to glue the two cookies together. You can use an offset spatula to scrape any excess filling.
• The filling will be soft on the day you assemble the cookies and then will dry out slightly and set in place after about a day. Store the cookies in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

Notes

• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• Please note that I bake with uncoated aluminum sheet pans that are light in colour. If you are baking this recipe with darker bakeware, you may have to drop the oven temperature to 325 °F (165 °C) to prevent your baked goods from browning too quickly.

Nutrition

Calories: 152kcal | Carbohydrates: 20g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 23mg | Sodium: 37mg | Potassium: 51mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 11g | Vitamin A: 233IU | Calcium: 19mg | Iron: 1mg

The post Maple Cream Cookies appeared first on The Bake School.

If you would like to explore more recipes for baking with pumpkin, order your copy of the e-book All About Pumpkin so you can celebrate this star ingredient!

Whoopie pies. It's about time! For months, I read about people's love for whoopie pies, all the while wondering what could possibly be so special about them.

What is a whoopie pie?

It turns out that whoopie pies are nothing but frosting sandwiched between two little cakes. In fact, whoopie pies used to be made to use up leftover cake batter so it wouldn't go to waste. The term whoopie pie comes from when kids would scream "whoopie!" whenever they were surprised with these little cake sandwiches in their lunches or after school. The most common whoopie pie is chocolate, but these pumpkin whoopie pies are gaining in popularity, especially around Thanksgiving and Halloween in North America.

Fillings For Whoopie Pies

Whoopie pies are really simple to make, and with the right filling, they are quite special and a lot of fun. The filling can be any thick frosting, like this cream cheese frosting, or in this case, a brown butter-flavoured cream cheese frosting, which adds pretty golden brown flecks to the filling. Around Christmas time, you can make a candy cane frosting and garnish with crushed mints. Really, any frosting made from butter and icing sugar will work. If you want a more sophisticated filling, you could even try an Italian meringue buttercream.

For pumpkin whoopie pies, you can either fill them with the frosting mentioned below or this white chocolate cream cheese frosting, which would also be delicious! It pairs well with pumpkin and also this moist gingerbread cake or this chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting.

Since fall is here to stay, my first batch of whoopie pies was inspired by a Wilton "Harvest" whoopie pie pan (available on Amazon) and their easy recipe for pumpkin spice whoopie pies. I added some ground ginger to add a little more zip to the cake batter. If you want to make them with homemade pumpkin purée, make sure to strain out the excess water because homemade pumpkin tends to be more watery.

I changed the frosting recipe slightly, adding in a little extra powdered sugar and substituting some brown butter for some of the cream cheese. The nuttiness of the brown butter is great in a cream cheese frosting like this one and the nutty aroma and flavor really come through since the frosting is not too sweet. I am madly in love with this frosting.

For the frosting, be sure to use Philadelphia full-fat cream cheese because the no-name brands just don't compare. In fact, I made two batches of this cream cheese frosting, one with Philly cream cheese and the other with my local grocery store's brand of cream cheese. The Philadelphia cream cheese produced the tastiest filling, but what was most shocking was the texture: the grocery store brand had an almost powdery feel to it and gave the frosting an almost grainy (unpleasant!) texture. The frosting made with Philadelphia cream cheese was much, much creamier, and really quite dreamy! (NB: Kraft did not pay me to write that).

If you're on the fence about whoopie pies, you should give them a try. They are a welcome change in a cupcake-dominated world. But if you don't have a whoopie pie pan, don't let that stop you! Bake small scoop-fulls of the batter on a parchment-lined baking sheet or use a muffin pan (like this one on Amazon) for perfectly round little cakes.

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Pumpkin Spice Whoopie Pies with Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

These super cute pumpkin whoopie pies with cream cheese filling are made with little pumpkin spice cakes and filled with a brown butter cream cheese frosting. These whoopie pies make a great pumpkin dessert for Thanksgiving for people who don't like pumpkin pie!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 40 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 55 minutes minutes

Servings 20 assembled whoopie pies

Calories 181kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Ingredients

For the whoopie pies

• 188 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 5 mL baking soda
• 2.5 mL baking powder
• 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 5 mL ground cinnamon
• 1.25 mL ground nutmeg
• 1.25 mL ground ginger
• 0.625 mL ground cloves
• 58 grams unsalted butter
• 200 grams granulated sugar
• 2 large egg(s) room temperature
• 125 mL pumpkin purée or strained homemade pumpkin purée
• 125 mL buttermilk (1 % fat)

For the brown butter cream cheese filling

• 58 grams unsalted butter
• 90 grams icing sugar sifted
• 200 grams Philadelphia cream cheese (full fat, regular) 200 grams, almost an entire block, room temperature

Metric - US

Instructions

Make the whoopie pie cakes:

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray the whoopie pie pan with cooking spray. Set aside for later.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. Set aside.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and the sugar for about 5 minutes.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed with a spatula.
• In another small bowl, combine the pumpkin and buttermilk.
• To the mixer, add the flour mixture and the pumpkin mixture, alternately, beginning and ending with the flour.
• Fill each whoopie pie mold no more than half full, spreading the mixture into all the nooks and crannies.
• Bake for 7 to 10 minutes (I baked some longer than others so that the whoopie pies were all different golden browns, just like fall leaves and pumpkins).
• Let the whoopie pies cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then tap them out onto a rack to cool completely before filling.

To make the filling:

• Begin by browning the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until the milk solids turn a nutty brown. Set aside to cool.
• Beat together the cream cheese and the cooled brown butter (be sure to add all those nutty brown bits!) in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
• With the mixer on low, slowly add the icing sugar. Beat until the desired consistency and level of sweetness is achieved.

To assemble

• Spread the filling on one cake and sandwich with another. Repeat to assemble remaining whoopie pies.

Notes

• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• Please use full fat Philadelphia brand cream cheese. This brand has the best flavour and texture!
• For the whoopie pies, I used the Wilton Harvest whoopie pie pan (available on Amazon) but of course, a regular whoopie pie pan (from Amazon) would also work, as would a muffin tin.
• If you don't have buttermilk, a common baking substitution is to use regular milk with a splash of vinegar (7.5 mL (½ tablespoon) of vinegar per 125 mL (½ cup) of milk)

Nutrition

Calories: 181kcal | Carbohydrates: 23g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 40mg | Sodium: 140mg | Potassium: 68mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 15g | Vitamin A: 1322IU | Vitamin C: 0.3mg | Calcium: 32mg | Iron: 1mg

The post Pumpkin Spice Whoopie Pies With Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting appeared first on The Bake School.

The secret to really good shortbread cutout cookies, that you can serve plain or sandwiched with a jam filling, is a sturdy cookie that is buttery and not too sweet. This shortbread cookie recipe is it. Whether you want to make shortbread sandwich cookies or you just want plain shortbread cookies, this recipe rolls out beautifully and is very easy to work with.

Technically, traditional shortbread aren't made with vanilla, but this recipe is. Using vanilla extract makes the flavour more complex, less bland. You can also try replacing the vanilla extract in the cookie dough with bourbon, rum, or even cognac.

The cut out shortbread cookies bake without much puffing or distortion of shape. They keep their shape while baking and don't spread in the oven.

Filling options

Once baked, these shortbread cookies are just firm enough to sandwich with a filling. You can fill them with:

• jam or marmalade (like this three fruit marmalade or this plum jam, or even a rhubarb jam (no pectin)
• lemon curd or other fruit curd, like in these grapefruit curd filled cookies
• thick chocolate ganache, like the milk chocolate ganache that you can spoon or pipe onto cookies once it's set
• maple butter (this would be SO GOOD!)

Note that depending on the filling you opt for, many options will require refrigeration, so you may want to store the baked shortbread cookie cutouts in a sealed airtight container at room temperature, and then fill the cookies just before serving.

Rolled shortbread cookie ingredient ratio

This shortbread cookie has a ratio that's pretty close to 4:1:4 by weight of butter/icing sugar/flour because the recipe has close to equal parts of butter and flour by weight and the weight of icing sugar is roughly ¼ the weight of flour.

For reference, I use a shortbread ratio of 1:2:3 ratio of sugar/butter/flour (by weight). But at that ratio, I usually press the cookie dough into a pan, as I did for these lavender shortbread cookies because the mixture is quite crumbly. These coconut butter cookies have a ratio that is close but not quite 1:2:3.

This recipe is from the book Oh Sweet Day! by Fanny Lam (available on Amazon). I've written a review of the Oh Sweet Day! book in case you want to know more about the book. I'd say these are a more sophisticated version of jam thumbprint cookies. For a richer shortbread cookie option for the holidays, try the Egyptian shortbread, which are a family favourite!

If you tried this recipe for the best jam-filled shortbread cookies (or any other recipe on my website), please leave a ⭐ star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you!

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Jam-Filled Shortbread Cookies

These shortbread cutout cookies are buttery and not too sweet and sturdy enough for sandwiching fillings like raspberry or strawberry jam.

Course Dessert

Cuisine British

Prep Time 25 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Resting time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 20

Calories 158kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan mixer
• GIR spatula
• Rolling pin
• Heart cutters

Ingredients

Shortbread cookies

• 230 grams unsalted butter softened
• 63 grams icing sugar
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 250 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt

Jam filled shortbread cookies

• 125 mL strawberry jam
• icing sugar for dusting on top of sandwich cookies

Metric - US

Instructions

Shortbread cookies

• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and ½ cup of the powdered sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
• Mix in the vanilla until combined.
• Sift in the flour and salt. Mix on low speed until just incorporated.
• Gather and form a dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 325 ºF (165 °C). Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper (I love the big Nordic Ware cookie sheets that you can get on Amazon).
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to ¼-inch thickness. Cut out circles with 2-inch cookie cutter. Re-roll scraps to cut out as many circles as possible. You should get about 40 circles. With a tiny heart, star or diamond cookie cutter, cut out centre window in 20 of the circles. Place cookies on prepared cookie sheets, spacing them out.
• Bake 15 to 18 minutes. Let the edges brown just a touch. Not too much! Let cool completely.

How to assemble shortbread sandwich cookies with jam

• Dollop a teaspoon of jam on the 20 "full circle", bottom side of the cookies. Top with the cookies with a centre cut-out window.
• Dust lightly with powdered sugar.

Notes

• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• Recipe makes approximately 40 cookies, but if you sandwich them together with a filling, that would make roughly 20 sandwich cookies once assembled.
• This recipe comes from Oh Sweet Day by Fanny Lam (available on Amazon)
• Please note that I bake with uncoated aluminum sheet pans that are light in colour. If you are baking this recipe with darker bakeware, you may have to drop the oven temperature to 300 °F (150 °C) to prevent your baked goods from browning too quickly.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 158kcal | Carbohydrates: 17g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 24mg | Sodium: 61mg | Potassium: 20mg | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 285IU | Vitamin C: 0.6mg | Calcium: 6mg | Iron: 0.6mg

The post Jam-filled shortbread cookies appeared first on The Bake School.

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Candy Cane Chocolate Whoopie Pies

Christmas whoopie pies made with chocolate whoopie pie cakes filled with frosting and topped with crushed candy canes for a festive holiday treat.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 15

Calories 255kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• Sheet pan
• 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan mixer
• ¾ oz scoop
• Mini offset

Ingredients

• 250 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 45 grams Cacao Barry extra brute cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2.5 mL baking powder
• 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 57 grams unsalted butter room temperature
• 200 grams granulated sugar
• 2 large egg(s)
• 188 mL buttermilk (1 % fat)
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 115 grams unsalted butter room temperature
• 125 grams icing sugar
• 7.5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 20 Miniature peppermint candy canes crushed

Metric - US

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350°F (175 °C). Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside for later.
• Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. Set aside.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and the sugar.
• Add the eggs, one at a time, along with the 1 teaspoon vanilla, scraping down the sides when necessary and beating well between additions.
• Add the sifted flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Continue beating just until mixed (do not overbeat).
• Dollop heaping tablespoonfuls on the prepared pans, smoothing the tops and sides with your spoon and being sure to space them about 1.5 inches apart.
• Bake for about 10 minutes (you can check that they are done by inserting a toothpick into the center of one—make sure it comes out clean).
• Let chocolate cookies cool for a minute before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
• When the cookies are cool, prepare the filling by beating together the butter with the icing sugar and 1.5 teaspoon vanilla, in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat until the filling is light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
• To assemble the whoopie pies, spread a heaping tablespoon of the filling on the flat side of one cookie, and top with another. Roll the edges in crushed candy cane. Whoopie pies are best enjoyed the day they are made.

Notes

• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• For the cocoa powder, I used Cacao Barry Extra Brute, a cocoa powder available on Amazon

Nutrition

Calories: 255kcal

The post Candy cane chocolate whoopie pies appeared first on The Bake School.

What are they

Alfajores are a delicious sandwich cookie popular in many Latin American countries. They are made from shortbread-like cookies and filled with dulce de leche. The sandwich cookies are rolled in shredded coconut (or chopped nuts) to coat the edges. Alternatively, they may be coated in a thin layer of chocolate (either white, milk, or dark). A popular brand of Argentinian alfajores cookies coated in chocolate is Havanna and they are very yummy!

The recipe below is a homemade version. It's adapted from this recipe for jam-filled shortbread cookies and filled with homemade dulce de leche made without condensed milk. You can also use store-bought dulce de leche. Here's a comparison of store brands of dulce de leche and how to thicken it if it's too thin to fill cookies.

What you need to make these

Like the classic 1-2-3 ratio shortbread cookies, you don't need many ingredients to make these sandwich cookies. They are mostly made from pantry staples! This recipe has more butter than the classic shortbread, which gives it a lovely, richer flavour.

• butter, specifically unsalted, is needed to make the shortbread cookie dough, though salted butter could work, but then skip the salt
• icing sugar, adds sweetness to the cookie without adding flavour because we want the butter in the cookie and the dulce de leche in the filling to shine through
• vanilla extract to flavour the cookies without overwhelming the dulce de leche
• salt, preferably Diamond Crystal kosher salt is necessary to balance out the sweet dulce de leche filling—if using table salt, you may want to halve the salt to avoid these cookies being too salty
• flour gives these cookies structure so that they hold their shape and don't spread as they bake
• cornstarch helps create a lighter textured cookie because it has no gluten
• dulce de leche, either homemade or store-bought but make sure it has a thick consistency that it doesn't ooze out of the cookie. If it's too thin, you will have to boil it down to thicken it.
• shredded coconut, or other garnishes like chopped nuts or even melted chocolate

See recipe card for quantities.

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Instructions

To make alfajores, you need to bake a batch of shortbread cookie cutouts first. Then you can fill them and sandwich them together.

The cookie dough is made with the creaming mixing method. You start with softened butter and sugar that you combine until smooth and creamy before stirring in the dry ingredients.

Remember to chill the cookie dough to make it easier to roll. Otherwise it may be too soft to work with. At any point, if you find the dough is getting too soft to handle, you may need to put it back in the fridge.

Hint: in the summer months, if your kitchen is warm, you may need to roll the dough between two sheets of parchment. This way, you can easily slide it onto a sheet pan to chill when necessary!

Once the cookies are baked and cooled, you flip half over to reveal the underside. Then you can dollop or pipe dulce de leche to assemble sandwich cookies. I like to put all the cookies on one sheet pan (or two) and proceed stepwise for all the cookies:

1. transfer all the baked cookies to a sheet pan
2. flip half of all cookies over to reveal underside
3. pipe filling onto all of the flipped cookies
4. top them all with another cookie and sandwich together, twisting each to anchor the two cookies together

Substitutions

The ingredients in this recipe are fairly simple. You still have a few options for substitutions, depending on what is in your pantry:

• Coconut - instead of shredded coconut, you can use finely chopped toasted nuts or even sprinkles, or omit them entirely and leave the cookies plain
• Dulce de leche - use homemade dulce de leche or store-bought, or you can fill the cookies with cajeta (a thick milk jam made from goat's milk)
• Cornstarch - the cornstarch can be replaced with the same amount of flour

Variations

The most popular filling for alfajores is dulce de leche, but that doesn't mean you can't deviate!

• Citrus - fill the cookies with lemon curd or orange marmalade
• Chocolate - replace the dulce de leche with a chocolate ganache that has set
• Jam - fill the cookies with homemade strawberry and red currant jam to make jam-filled shortbread cookies
• Caramel - replace the dulce de leche with salted caramel sauce. However, make sure to boil it to 235–240 °F to ensure that it has the right thickness for piping.

Check out these coconut cookies filled with grapefruit curd for an example of a sandwich cookie filled with citrus curd. You could fill that coconut shortbread with dulce de leche to achieve a similar result!

Equipment

Like for most cookies, you don't need many tools to make this recipe. Here are a few suggestions to make your life easier when you tackle this recipe:

• an electric hand mixer or even a stand mixer because it can be difficult to make cookie dough by hand in a bowl with a wooden spoon...
• a spatula for scraping down the bowl to ensure the butter and sugar are evenly incorporated with the rest of the ingredients and to avoid textural defects when the cookies bake
• a kitchen scale, not only for verifying that the scoops of dough are even, but also to measure out the ingredients
• a rolling pin and round cookie cutters
• half sheet pans, at least two of them, and parchment paper for easy cleanup
• a cooling rack to transfer freshly baked cookies to allow for air circulation as they cool.
• a piping bag to cleanly and evenly dispense the dulce de leche, though a small spoon will work too.

Top tip

The key to making neat sandwich cookies with dulce de leche as a filling is to ensure that the filling is thick enough, not runny. Also, use a piping bag to cleanly and evenly dispense the filling onto each cookie, without making a sticky mess

Storage

Normally, I would suggest storing these cookies in a container at room temperature. However, dulce de leche needs to be stored in the refrigerator since it is a dairy product, so you should store alfajores in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks in an air-tight container.

📖 Recipe

Print

Alfajores Cookies

Learn how to make alfajores with this easy recipe for shortbread cutout cookies fililed with dulce de leche.

Course Dessert

Cuisine British

Prep Time 45 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Chill time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Servings 20

Calories 158kcal

Author Janice Lawandi

Equipment

• 5-quart KitchenAid Artisan mixer
• GIR spatula
• Rolling pin
• Round cutters

Ingredients

Cutout shortbread cookies

• 230 grams unsalted butter softened
• 63 grams icing sugar
• 2.5 mL Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt
• 5 mL pure vanilla extract
• 220 grams bleached all-purpose flour
• 30 grams cornstarch

Alfajores

• 250 mL dulce de leche homemade or store-bought (you may need more or less depending on how much you pipe onto each cookie)
• 50 grams unsweetened shredded coconut or sweetened

Metric - US

Instructions

Shortbread cookies

• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, icing sugar, and salt on medium–low speed until light and well mixed, about 2-3 minutes.
• Mix in the vanilla until combined.
• Sift in the flour and cornstarch. Mix on low speed until just incorporated.
• Gather and form a dough. Shape it into a disk, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes or until firm.
• Preheat oven to 325 ºF (165 °C). Line two large half-sheet pans with parchment paper (I love the big Nordic Ware cookie sheets that you can get on Amazon).
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to ¼-inch thickness. Cut out circles with 2-inch cookie cutter. Re-roll scraps to cut out as many circles as possible. You should get about 40 circles. If the dough gets too warm, chill it again to firm it up before rerolling, otherwise it may be too soft and sticky.
• Place cookies on prepared cookie sheets, spacing them out. Chill them in the fridge for 15 minutes before baking until they are very firm
• Bake 15 to 18 minutes. Let the edges brown just a touch. Not too much! Let cool completely before filling.

How to assemble alfajores cookies with dulce de leche

• Transfer the dulce de leche to a piping bag. Cut a wide opening, about ½ inch diameter. (Alternatively, you can fit the piping bag with a 12 mm or ½ inch tip, if you prefer, but that isn't necessary!)
• Pipe a couple of teaspoons of dulce de leche on the bottom side of half of the cookies. Top each with another cookie to sandwich them together. You may twist the top and bottom cookie in opposite directions to help spread the filling to the edges.
• Place the shredded coconut in a shallow wide bowl and roll the edges of the cookies in it, pressing the coconut in place.
• Store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks in an air-tight container.

Notes

• Recipe makes approximately 40 cookies, but if you sandwich them together with a filling, that would make roughly 20 sandwich cookies once assembled.
• You may need more or less dulce de leche, depending on how much you pipe onto each cookie before closing. I tried to put roughly 10-15 mL (2–3 teaspoons) per cookie, so I used about 250 mL (1 cup)
• If you follow this dulce de leche recipe, made without condensed milk, you will have plenty to fill all the cookies in this recipe, plus you will have some leftover to spread on your morning toast!
• This recipe calls for Diamond Crystal fine Kosher salt. If using regular table salt, add half the amount or the recipe may be too salty!
• Please note that I bake with uncoated aluminum sheet pans that are light in colour. If you are baking this recipe with darker bakeware, you may have to drop the oven temperature by 300 °F (150 °C) in order to prevent your baked goods from browning too quickly.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 158kcal | Carbohydrates: 14g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 11g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 25mg | Sodium: 51mg | Potassium: 29mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 287IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 5mg | Iron: 1mg

Frequently asked questions

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