Red Velvet Cookie Sandwiches
A perfect way to celebrate the New Year! These festive cookies are a delicious spin off of your traditional red velvet cake.
Here’s what you do:
Yields 12-15 sandwiches
Cook Time: 10 mins
What I was listening to: Celine Dion’s Greatest Hits…(ha fo real)
Ingredients:
For the Red Velvet Cookies
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tbsp buttermilk
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (I used Trader Joe’s Bourbon Vanilla extract which was amazing!)
- 1 tbsp red food coloring
- Milk chocolate chips
For the Maple Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting
- ½ cup butter (1 stick)
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1 1/3 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp bourbon
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 cup crushed pecans or walnuts
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix together the dry ingredients: flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set this aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs one at a time, buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla, and red food coloring. (Your batter will be brilliantly red!)
Time for dry to meet wet! Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients while mixing and combine thoroughly.
On a hard surface, carefully crush the milk chocolate chips into small chocolate chunks.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (This will allow you to easily remove the cookies after baking, without harm. You can get this at any grocery store).
Drop 1-2 inch rounds of dough onto the baking sheet. *These cookies spread out A LOT, so make sure you space them out well. If you choose, you can make bigger cookies, which result in gigantic red velvet sandwiches.
Sprinkle the dough with milk chocolate chunks.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. The cookies will come out round, cake-like, and light.
Cool on a wire rack.
In a separate bowl, whip up the butter, cream cheese, maple syrup, bourbon, powdered sugar and nuts. You can chill this in the fridge while baking the cookies.
Once the cookies have completely cooled, it is time to assemble! Pair up the cookies so that they somewhat match each other in size. Lather a generous amount of frosting onto the bottom of a cookie. Top with another cookie.
And there you have it! Red Velvet Cookie Sandwiches…ooolala.
These taste great after some chilling in the freezer or refrigerator – just make sure to wrap them tightly so that moisture does not seep into them.
Note: I originally found this recipe in Paula Deen’s collection, and then added a few personal touches, such as putting milk chocolate chunks in the cookie and concocting a maple cream cheese icing for the sandwich filling. Also, I reduced the amount of sugar in both cookie and the icing to prevent an overwhelming amount of sweetness. Enjoy!
