Last week I made these cookies to celebrate November 11th, 2011. I met my friends Celeste and Mary for lunch to celebrate the day. I’ve been practicing my cookie skills…you can tell I still need lots of practice and a lighter hand with the disco dust. But that’s not what I’m supposed to be telling you about…
My recipe for sugar cookies makes a lot. I had plenty of dough leftover from the 11.11.11 cookies. I usually freeze it (it keeps well in the freezer for a few months), but this time kept the extra in the frig to make cookies for my weekend treat.
These week’s Challenge Ingredient is persimmon. I looked for fresh persimmons locally and did not find any. What I did find was a jar of persimmon butter at the farmer’s market. I don’t have a recipe to share for it, but did find this one from Saving the Season and the ingredients sound similar to what I could taste in the jar I bought. I decided to use persimmon butter with my butter-y sugar cookies to make petite sandwich cookies. After the recipe, I’ll share some thoughts on this filling as well as other possibilities.
Butter-y Sugar Cookies
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter (2 sticks) or Earth Balance if dairy-free
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla bean paste
3cups of my favorite flour blend
1 1/2 t. guar gum
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1 jar jam, jelly, preserves or fruit spread (persimmon butter used here)
Cream sugar and butter until fluffy using an electric mixer, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix dry ingredients separately, adding to the butter mixture one cup at a time. Mix well.
Split the dough into two equal parts. Place one part on top of a piece of plastic wrap and flatten into a disc. Place another piece of plastic wrap on top, roll the edges up and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Repeat with other half of dough. Instead of turning the dough out onto a floured surface, you can now roll it out between the pieces of plastic wrap and not add any additional flour to the already-perfect dough!
Cut into tiny 2″ circles and place on Silpat or parchment lined baking sheet. Bake cookies at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes.
Move cookies to cooling rack. Once cool, spread a scant teaspoon of jam, butter or other filling on the flat side of one cookie. Top with another cookie. That’s it!
I shared these cookies with two friends at two separate events. Both said the same thing, “These melt in your mouth!” And that they do. The moisture of the persimmon butter made the cookies softer and the cookies do melt in your mouth. These were a great treat over the weekend. I’m going to save my leftover sugar cookie dough from now on to make these little cookies and spread leftover butters and jams between them to make sandwich cookies.
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