Chocolate Cherry Sandwich Cookies
Chocolate Cherry Sandwich Cookies are the perfect cookie to add to your exchange box this holiday season. The outside chocolate cookie is both soft enough to bite through but crunchy enough to hold firm in a sandwich cookie. Bursting with flavor from the dark chocolate cocoa powder and the juices from the amerena cherries, these will be gone in the blink of an eye.
I’m not going to lie; these cookies are a labor of love. These aren’t cookies that you are going to throw together last minute for guests that will be here in an hour. They need chill in the fridge after mixing and before baking to make sure they are easy to roll out and keep their shape. The juices from the cherries lend to a wetter dough so chill time is essential. Even though these take a while to come together, I promise they are worth it
Cookie Ingredients
So, the ingredients in these cookies are pretty straightforward. The only thing that really stands out is the addition of the amarena cherries. The juices in the cherries are undoubtedly the star of the show. They bring such a distinct and beautiful cherry flavor. Aside from the cherries, you will need the following
- Butter- obviously
- Egg
- Flour- again pretty obvious
- Cocoa Powder- I prefer the dark chocolate powder but the regular is fine too
- Sugar
- Baking Powder
- Salt
- Amerena Cherries- these will get chopped up and mixed into the cookie dough while the juice is used in the buttercream filling
- Vanilla
Method
You start these cookies like you would any other, butter and sugar into a stand mixer to cream. For these cookies I used all granulated sugar. Granulated sugar leads to a crispier and sturdier cookie which is what we want when it comes to sandwich cookies. Once creamed, you’ll add in the egg and the vanilla and mix to combine. Next come the dry ingredients. This recipe calls for a little more flour than you might think is necessary, again to combat the moisture of the cherries and lend to a sturdier cookie. Lastly, you’ll add the chopped cherries. Work with whatever size cut works for you. I chopped mine pretty small so that there would be cherries in every bite!
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, these are a labor of love. You want cookies that are going to hold their shape while they are baking to give that perfect sandwich look. Once the dough is brought together, wrap the batter in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. Now there are two ways you could go about doing this. The first is to flatten it slightly into a disk shape, like a pie dough. This will be the best way to cool if you want to roll them out and use a cutter for the shape like I did.
This way give you more uniform circles so that both parts of your sandwich will be the same size. If you don’t care as much about the shape, you could form the dough into a log and wrap in plastic. Once cold, you’ll be able to slice them exactly like a slice and bake cookie. Either way, you’ll want to leave the cookies in the fridge for multiple hours to get extremely cold. This makes for better handling when cutting.
Baking
There is one important step you must take before baking your chocolate cherry cookies. Once you cut your cookies, either by rolling out to a 1/4 inch thickness and cutting with a circle cookie cutter, or using the slice and bake method, these cookies need to go into the freezer to resolidify. Much like a pie dough, you don’t want that butter to leak out and spread.
Another thing that helps these cookies hold their shape while baking is that fact that we are baking them at a lower temperature. 330 degrees for 10 minutes yields the perfect shape and texture for sandwich cookies.
The Finishing Touches
Amerena Cherry Buttercream Icing…need I say more? This icing brings the entire cookie together. The sweetness from the icing perfectly balances with the chocolate in the cookie. Three simple ingredients bring this icing together and it couldn’t be easier.
- Butter
- Powdered Sugar
- Amerena Cherry Juice
Combine them in the stand of a stand mixer with the WHISK attachment and it is sheer perfection.
I have some questions though…Do I have to use Amerena Cherries?
- Do I have to use Amerena Cherries? -Absolutely not! I used these cherries because their flavor is undeniable. Dried cherries will work just fine. You may want to decrease the amount of flour slightly to combat the lack of moisture in dried cherries. Also keep in mind that the cherry flavor will not be as distinct in the chocolate cookie.
- Is the refrigeration really necessary? – 100% yes! If you want uniform size and shaped cookies, you need to keep these babies cold. If you put them straight from the mixer to the oven, I’m sure they will just spread into a thin crisp.
- If I don’t use Amerena Cherries, what do I use for the buttercream filling? – Here you could use cherry extract if you are able to find it or a couple tablespoons of cherry juice. You could also not flavor your buttercream since you will still get the cherry flavor in the cookies.
So that’s it. From start to finish with tips and tricks. These chocolate cherry cookies are perfect for the holidays, but do yourself a favor…hide a couple extra for yourself!
If you need more Holiday Cookie Recipe Ideas, check this out!
Chocolate Cherry Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter room temp
- 1¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp salt
- 1¼ cup flour
- ¼ cup plus 2 tbsp cocoa powder I used special dark; plus extra for dusting
- 20 amarena cherries finely chopped
Cherry Buttercream
- ½ cup butter
- 1 cup powdered sugar plus extra for dusting
- 3 tbsp cherry juice from amarena cherries
Instructions
- Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer. Cream together until fully combined.
- Add in the egg and the vanilla extract. Stir until combined making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add in all the dry ingredients and stir slowly until just combined.
- Dump in the chopped cherries and fold in.
- Once the dough is combined, dump onto a piece of plastic wrap. Press down into a roughly shaped circle and wrap in plastic. Place in the fridge for 3-4 hours until firm and cold.
- When the dough is cold and chilled, roll out into ¼ inch thickness on plastic wrap. You'll want to work quickly because as the dough warms up it will become sticky
- Using a circular cookie cutter or small biscuit cutter, cut out small circles. Place the circles on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer. Allow to rest in the freeze for an hour. At this point you can re roll your leftover dough into a ball and cut more circles later.
- While the cookies freeze, preheat oven to 330°F.
- Remove cookies from freeze and bake for 10 minutes. Make sure your cookies have space between them so that when they spread, they don't touch. Use multiple cookie sheets if necessary.
- Remove cookies from oven and allow to cool slightly on the cookie sheet. Then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Once all the cookies are baked and cooling, put together your buttercream filling. Add 1 stick of butter, 3 tbsp of the cherry syrup from the container, 1 cup of powdered sugar, and a pinch of salt to the bowl of you stand mixer
- With the whisk attachment, mix these ingredients together until smooth.
- Spoon your buttercream into a ziploc bag or piping bag and pipe onto the bottom of half of your cookie shells.
- Top the buttercream with another cookie shell. Once you've sandwiched all your cookies, sprinkle with powdered sugar
- Enjoy!
Notes
- When rolling your cookies out, use the cocoa powder as a flour substitute to keep your cookies from sticking to the plastic wrap or your rolling pin
- The longer you refrigerate these the better! You want the dough to be so cold it is almost impossible to roll out. You can even put the dough in the freezer if you like.
- You do not have to sprinkle them with powdered sugar if you don’t want to, but I think it makes them look pretty.