Jam-Filled Sandwich Cookies and Curious Cat Cravings

There’s a delicious smell wafting through my home right now: Jam-Filled Sandwich Cookies are baking away in my oven. They smell soooo good! My plan was to bring some in to work tomorrow, but they smell so butterly delicious that I might just change my mind and keep them all for me for my notorious midnight snack cravings. I wish they were done already so that I could eat them! I have no patience when it comes to eating delicious things. *grin*

The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking Chez Moi and it’s the latest recipe that my bake-a-long group is making. It’s a pretty easy recipe:

• Make the dough, roll it out, cut it into little circles (I used a champagne glass to cut the circles out).
• Place a spoonful of jam in the centre of one circle (I used some homemade strawberry rhubarb jam because that’s what I have open in my fridge).
• Run a wet finger around the edge of the circle and place another circle of dough on top.
• Press the edges to seal.

And whamm-o! into the oven it goes!

• Bake.
• Rotate sheet in oven and finish baking.
• Cool (in theory).
• Eat (try not to burn your tongue).

The last step is definitely my favourite!

The recipe says that it will make a dozen cookies, but I must have made them smaller than called for, because it turned out two dozen. Well, 1 and 11/12 dozen. (I ate the dough for the last cookie and am completely unrepentant.)

As I type this, there’s a cat trying to walk on my lap and/or the keyboard, which makes typing a little difficult. I doubt that I’m the attraction; most likely the cat is trying to get a taste of cookie off me. This is a very curious cat, let me tell you — it actually likes chickpeas (plain and in falafel form) and watermelon (let’s just say that I had some unexpected help finishing off a watermelon smoothie when I left it on my bedside table once).

The cat seems to approve of the cookies — and so do I! I wonder what it would taste like with a Nutella filling. Mmm…! The cookies are basically a shortbread cookie, with a smidgen of jam inside to sweeten it a little and make it a tad chewy/sticky. The secret ingredient is the corn starch, which replaces flour, but without the binding properties of flour. Want a fluffy dough? Add corn starch! (Like I did in my Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns last year, to great — and fluffy — success.)

Would I recommend this recipe? Yup! It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a nice little cookie with a hint of flavour, and easily customizable. With, say, Nutella! I’d probably put in more jam next time, but hey, live and learn! I wonder what everyone else did?

Next Post: My copycat Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (with a grape jelly bonbon variation thrown in).