Cherry Buttercream Sandwich Cookies

It's been a while since I've made some sweet little cookie treats.  Sandwich cookies seemed to be just the thing to fill the gap.  Cherry buttercream frosting fills these sugar cookie halves... but you could easily use the flavour of your choice.


Cookie Ingredients
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 unsalted butter, softened
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F
Yields approximately 20-24

In a bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt.  In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar then add in egg, almond extract and combine.  Add flour mixture a bit at a time to the sugar mixture until fully combined and you can form the dough into a ball.  You may find it easiest to use your hands.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface to approximately 1/4 inch thickness.  Cut out desired shapes.  I would suggest using cookie cutter no larger then 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

Place cookies on a non stick cookie sheet (I used stoneware), about 1 inch apart.  Bake in centre of oven, one tray at a time for approximately 10 minutes or until edges barely start to get golden.

Remove from oven and let set for a minute or two before transferring to a cooling rack.

While the cookies are cooling, we'll move onto the cookie filling.  I used a basic buttercream frosting with an added bonus of cherry juice.

Icing Ingredients
2 cups icing suger
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening, softened
2 Tbsp cherry juice

Beat all ingredients until well incorporated.  Spoon or pipe the icing onto half of the cookies, place the other halves on top, pressing down slightly until filling comes to the edges.  If you are wondering where I got the cherry juice, I literally pressed some very ripe cherries and extracted the juice.  The flavour of the cherry is very mild.

If buttercream isn't your thing, you could do cream cheese frosting instead.  Instead of cherry juice, you could use any strong flavoured juice like POM or Ribena.  I like that the cherry juice added natural colouring as well.

Let the finished cookies rest for a bit so the frosting can firm up.  Store in an airtight container for a couple days, or in refrigerator for longer.  Dough freezes well if you wish to make it ahead.  You can also make the cookies and freeze in advance (without frosting).