Hi hi! I’m sorry that I’ve been hiding a little bit. Anxiety, jet lag and homesickness isn’t a great combination if you’re looking for a good time, it turns out! I always find coming back to NYC a little hard, but for some reason this time was extra tricky. I am so, so grateful to have something that makes coming back so hard. It’s been 6 years and I swear it gets harder each time, and I forget about how hard it is and expect to be able to throw myself full noise back into work, and get bummed out with myself each time when I remember I need to just take it easy on myself for a wee bit and say a big old NOPE to adulting for a few days, and sure enough, I popped out the other side and I am ready to party again (by partying I mean staying home and working with my cat)!
Thankfully past me must have been able to predict this wee slump, because I have a couple of things that I shot before we left tucked away to share with you! These Black cocoa sugar cookie sandwiches with cream cheese frosting are a wee riff on a few recipes that I have shared before. This sugar cookie recipe originally came from Sarah Kieffer’s amazing book, and I have tweaked it a couple of times over the years for a few different things. It’s a basic chocolate sugar cookie, which I gave the black cocoa treatment, which gives off some serious Oreo vibes. The cookies alone are super good, and are the perfect texture - soft but also a little chewy, and they bake up perfectly flat, with a coating of sugar on the outside, which makes them ideal for sandwiching with things, in this case a cream cheese frosting. Black cocoa pairs perfectly with the cream cheese in this case - the cocoa is a little bitter and the frosting is sweet and a little bit tangy. These are kind of like a grown up oreo - and they are very, very good. I hope that you give them a try! x
A few wee tips:
The cookies alone are great. You should make them and eat them.
The secret, I have found, to cream cheese icing that doesn’t go everywhere, is cold cream cheese. You want room temperature butter, and cold cream cheese. Don’t be scared to whip the heck out of it once you add the powdered sugar to get rid of any lumps.
I sandwiched these together with little blobs of frosting which I piped with a french star tip, which meant that there wasn’t toooo much frosting. You could use a round tip or pipe a circle of frosting too - just make it nice and thin so that you don’t get too much sweetness from the frosting.
These do soften up quite a bit once you make them so if you are preparing them ahead, I would make the cookies and frosting separately and store them, then assemble these the day you are serving. Just give the frosting a quick wee re-whip. I have two mixing bowls for this reason - I often will store something in the bowl with some plastic wrap pressed against the surface, so if it needs to be re-whipped I can just stick the whole thing back onto the mixer and whip it back up!
If you can’t find black cocoa, dutch cocoa will work great too! Black cocoa and dutch cocoa have been through a similar alkalising process, black cocoa has just been taken one step further and alkalised even more to make it extra dark. It’s worth tracking down if you can, but if not, dutch cocoa works perfectly here too!
Black Cocoa Sugar Cookie Sandwiches with Cream Cheese Buttercream
- Makes about 12 cookie sandwiches -
Cookie recipe slightly adapted from The Vanilla Bean Baking Book
Black Cocoa Sugar Cookies
230g all-purpose flour
50g black cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
225g unsalted butter, at room temperature
350g sugar, plus more for rolling
1 egg, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Frosting
85g unsalted butter, at room temperature
170g cream cheese, cold
340g powdered sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp salt
- PROCESS -
BLACK SUGAR COOKIES
Preheat the oven to 350°f / 180°c. Line three baking trays with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until combined. Add the flour and cocoa mixture, and beat on low until just incorporated.
Using a cookie scoop, scoop 2 tbsp worth of mixture at a time. Roll into a ball using your hands, then roll generously sugar. Place on the baking tray, leaving plenty of room to spread (I had 8 cookies per baking tray).
Bake one tray at a time for 11-12 minutes, until the cookies have puffed up and are beginning to crack on the tops, and the edges are set. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking tray for 15 minutes and then transfer to an airtight container until ready to use.
FROSTING AND ASSEMBLY
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl, cream together the butter and cream cheese on high until pale and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add powdered sugar, and mix on low to combine. Add vanilla and salt. Turn the mixer to high and beat for another 3-4 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
Transfer the frosting to a piping bag fitted with a french star tip (I used an Ateco #865). Alternatively use your piping tip of choice.
Pair up the cookies. Pipe blobs of frosting onto one cookie and place another on top, pressing lightly to stick. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies. Chill until frosting is set.
Store cookies in an airtight container in the fridge.
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