I am not the craftiest. I have admitted this before but I just thought I’d state it again. So when I spied these dark chocolate sugar cookies online, I knew I would make them but needed to come up with a way to make them cute that didn’t involve royal icing and piping and such.
So behold, the chocolate sugar cookie sandwich! Also known as cutely shaped, cut-out homemade Oreos. Really freakin’ amazingly good, never-buy-store-bought-again, homemade Oreos. Yes, they are THAT GOOD. I just cut out about 14, 4-inch cookies and then cut smaller shapes out of the middle of half of them. If you don’t bake the small shapes like I did, you could reuse the dough and get about 16, 4-inch cookies. Which is what I’d do next time because the tiny ones didn’t turn out terribly cute. But tasty! And that’s what really matters, right??
Recipe courtesy of Sprinklesbakes.com
- 1 c. (2 sticks) Unsalted Butter, softened
- 1 c. plus 2 T. Granulated Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1 t. Pure Vanilla
- 2 c. plus 1 T. All-Purpose Flour
- 1 c. Dark Cocoa Powder
- ⅛ t. Salt
- ⅓ c. (5 T.) Unsalted Butter, softened
- 2 c. Powdered Sugar
- 3 T. Heavy Whipping Cream (or milk)
- 2 t. Pure Vanilla
- ½ t. Almond Extract (optional)
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until just incorporated. Do not over-mix at this stage or the cookies may spread while baking. Add the egg and vanilla. Mix on low speed, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl intermittently as needed.
- In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder and salt. Add to the butter and egg mixture. Mix on low speed until a dough is formed and there are no longer any streaks of butter in the mixing bowl. The dough will clump around the paddle attachment but that's ok, it's normal and a good sign your dough is the right consistency. With your hands, form the dough into a ball.
- On a clean counter-top, roll out your dough to ¼-inch thickness. Cut out desired shapes from the cookie dough and carefully transfer to your baking sheets. Bake the cookies for 15 minutes, rotating pans and switching racks halfway through to endure even baking. Let them cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Frost with frosting and decorate with sanding sugar, sprinkles, etc.
- Beat butter, sugar and milk about 5 minutes. Beat in extracts.
