Willowbird Baking Challenge #3 Filled Cookies

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  Filled Sachertorte Cookies

Willowbird Baking's Challenge #3 is for filled cookie. Think of  a cookie that has a surprise middle or something that isn't a usual filling, say an oreo like these from Picky Palate. This was Julie's inspiration for this challenge. I had two ideas in mind. One was for a filled snickerdoodle and the other was to take a cookie that my mom makes at Christmastime and instead of it being a thumbprint type cookie, I turned it into a filled cookie. She makes a Sachertorte cookie, a chocolate butter cookie with cherry preserves and melted chocolate drizzled over the top. They are a family favorite. I prefer them frozen. I know. I'm weird. I chose this one because I found a lot of recipes similar to the filled snickerdoodle one, and I wanted to do something a little different. Although I may do the other one soon. No one has made exactly what I was planning. Yet.

Making these filled was a bit of a challenge since its not normally a solid, So I had to work in stages of chilling and layering. Chocolate dipping a cherry is one thing, but chocolate dipping cherry preserves is a whole 'nother animal. ha  Once I had them filled these puppies were BIG. I got a dozen out of my batch of dough. I think my mom's original recipe makes like 4 dozen ha ha.

I could only fit 6 on my baking sheet at a time. I can normally bake a dozen cookies easily on these sheets. I'm telling you these were BIG.

A lot of the sugar got baked in. I am thinking if I do these again I may roll in turbinado sugar, a more coarse sugar, just because I like the look and the crunch of the coarser sugar.

I was kind of bummed that the filling wasn't pronounced as I thought it would be. The chocolate didn't melt into the cookie as it baked, I just was having a hard time getting it to show up on pics. These taste really good, but don't photograph all that well.

Still a really fun challenge to participate in. Thanks again Julie!! This was a challenging one for sure, can't wait to see what's next!

Filled Sachertorte cookies

Ingredients:

Cookies:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temp

3/4c sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 2/3 c all purpose flour

1/3c cocoa powder

Pinch salt

Granulated sugar for rolling cookies in a small bowl

Filling:

1 jar cherry preserves (the kind with whole cherries in it)

1 12 oz bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

3 tbsp shortening, butter or vegetable oil

Directions:

For the Filling

Preheat oven to 325 Deg F. Prepare a baking sheet with either parchment paper or a silicon bake mat.

Prepare the filing.  Melt the chocolate chips with shortening (or butter or oil) in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second intervals and stir until melted, about 2 min.  Let cool a few minutes. Prepare a baking sheet with wax paper. Spoon out a small circle of chocolate and chill in freezer for a minute to set up. Then spoon a cherry from the preserves with a little of the jam from the jar on top of the chocolate. Chill in freezer again another minute to set up, or let them freeze solid. Then top with more chocolate to cover, or if the preserves are frozen you can dip to cover them. I found that once there was a little chocolate covering them when frozen they were easier to dip. Just make sure no preserves are leaking out.  Store in freezer on the wax paper covered sheet until ready.

For the Cookies:

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.  Using a stand or a hand held mixer, cream the butter and sugar mix well, add egg and vanilla. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix on low until just combined.

Scoop out two separate tablespoons of dough and roll into balls. Make an indent in the middles with your thumb, place one of the chocolate covered cherry preserves pieces into the indent of one piece of dough, and cover with the other, pressing the sides to close the seam. Roll into a ball. Place the ball into the bowl of sugar and gently roll until covered. Repeat for remaining cookies. Place 2-3 inches apart on a baking sheet. Bake for 15-18 min. Let cool completely.  These are big cookies so I got 6 per batch I baked.