Chocolate almond sandwich cookies
Every year in lieu of store-bought gifts for our extended family, my mom baked. The week and weekend before Christmas was dedicated to baking batch after batch of peanut butter blossoms, Mexican wedding cookies, cheesecake bars—any sweet recipe that called to her from the Taste of Home cookbooks she’d get in the mail. She’d assign me tasks like measuring out the flour, creaming the butter and sugar, making a loaf of banana bread, and there I’d be in the midst of our flour-dusted dining room table rolling out cookie dough or dipping cookies into melted chocolate. There wasn’t any saying no to helping, and nothing worse could have been happening to me at the time. As a dramatic teen I found baking to be too messy, demanding too much of bratty 14-year-old Teresa’s attention, when there was No Doubt to be listening to alone in my bedroom, or a new Seventeen magazine to lazily thumb through on the couch.
Channeling my mom in the 90s, I’m spending the week before Christmas making a bunch of baked goods for me and my boyfriend, the community pantry, this blog. This cookie recipe is the exact same as my Orange Nutmeg Shortbread Cookie with the addition of cocoa powder. The cookie is sandwiched between dark chocolate nutmeg ganache and more of the spiced rum cherry compote from yesterday. I made these cookies heart-shaped because I realized this morning I didn’t have the diamond cookie cutter that I thought I did and anyway it’s a nice nod to my micro bakery, At Heart Panaderia.
The cookie dough can be made up to 24 hours ahead of serving. They also travel extremely well but I don’t recommend shipping unless you’ll be sending them overnight. I love how the chocolate dough is studded with fine pieces of almond, and of course the almond flavor pairs well with the cherries. I dusted the tops of the cookies with a mixture of cocoa powder, finely ground freeze-dried cherries, and demerara sugar, but a simple dusting of confectioner’s sugar will work too.
EQUIPMENT NEEDED:
Stand mixer or hand mixer
One small baking pan
One large baking pan
Food processor
Parchment paper
Mixing bowl
Saucepan for warming the heavy cream
Scale or measuring cups/spoons (you will need: ⅓ cup, ¼ cup, 1 cup, 1 teaspoon, ½ teaspoon, ¼ teaspoon)
Rolling pin
Piping bag and piping tip or a small spoon
Chocolate Almond Sandwich Cookie with Spiced Rum Cherry Piloncillo Compote and Dark Chocolate Ganache
Yield: about 24 cookies
Active time: ~35 minutes, including time accounted for rolling out the dough
Bake time: 11-13 minutes
Cookies:
70 grams (⅔ cup) raw, unsalted almonds
55 grams (about ¼ cup) grated piloncillo or packed dark brown sugar
290 grams (about 2 ¼ cups) all-purpose flour
29 grams (¼ cup) cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
8 ounces (1 cup; 2 sticks) salted butter, room temp
50 grams (¼ cup) granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temp
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon almond extract
Spiced Rum Cherry Piloncillo Compote
Ganache:
7 ounces (two 3.5 ounce bars) 65%-70% dark chocolate, finely chopped
3.5 ounces heavy cream, straight from the fridge
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon kosher salt
To make the cookies:
Heat oven to 350F.
On a rimmed baking sheet, spread almonds in a single layer. Toast nuts until fragrant, about 8 minutes. Turn oven off and let almonds cool completely.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, ground nutmeg, and salt in a mixing bowl and set aside.
Using a food processor, grind the toasted almonds with the brown sugar until the nuts are very finely ground. Some larger and smaller pieces of almond are fine.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and granulated sugar on medium-high speed until very light and fluffy, a good 7 minutes.
Crack in the egg and mix. Add the vanilla bean paste and mix until combined. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl to ensure even mixing.
Reduce mixing speed to low now. Gradually add in the ground almond/brown sugar mixture, then the rest of the dry ingredients. Mix just until combined and you have thick dough.
Divide the dough in half and shape into disks. Cover each disk tightly with plastic wrap and let chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.
Set cookie dough disks on your counter to bring to slight room temperature before rolling, about 10 minutes if dough was only chilling for 1 hour; up to 45 if dough was chilling overnight or 24 hours (this helps to prevent cracks and makes the dough more manageable when rolling).
Heat oven to 350F again. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out one disk to about ¼-inch thickness (we’re making cookies, not crackers). Give the dough a quarter turn using a pastry/dough scraper after each roll with your rolling pin. This helps you achieve even thickness and help the dough to not stick to your counter.
Using a 2-inch cookie cutter in any shape you like, cut out as many cookies as possible. Re-roll the scraps and repeat. These will be your bottom cookies.
Place cookies on one of the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about ½-inch apart.
Bake cookies for 13 minutes or until cookies have puffed up a bit. They will be soft right after baking and will firm up as they cool.
Repeat with the remaining cookie dough. Using a 3-inch cookie cutter and a 1-inch cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as you can.
Bake the tops of the cookies for 11 minutes. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
For the ganache:
Place chopped chocolate in a heat-safe bowl.
In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a gentle boil. Be mindful to not let the cream come to a rolling boil. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let sit undisturbed for 5 minutes.
Slowly whisk the cream into the chocolate until very smooth. Add in the ground nutmeg and the salt; whisk again just to combine.
To assemble cookies:
Turn each of the cookies designated as the “bottoms” and flip them over. Pipe or spoon about 1 teaspoon of the ganache onto each cookie, then top with about ½ teaspoon of the Spiced Rum Cherry Piloncillo compote. Finally, place one of the cookies with the cut out on top of each cookie.
Store cookies in an airtight container either in the fridge or on your kitchen counter for up to 5 days.