Pink Raspberry Cream Sandwich Cookies to Celebrate

It's Tuesday and instead of a delicious cinnamon cake, I've made a perfect party cake (early) and a few dozen cupcakes for my tall man's Grandma's 90th birthday, loads of cookies, and a newly refinished front door. Maybe the door doesn't fall in the "making" category, but it's certainly taken up lots of baking time and the end results of the newly stained dark chocolate colored wood are delicious. So I present one of my favorite cookie recipes- Martha Stewart's Raspberry Cream Sandwich Cookies. Layered between two vanilla bean cookies is a creamy raspberry white chocolate ganache that lends itself to other delicious flavors- chocolate, mint, strawberry, whatever strikes your fancy.

I made these last summer to give to a friend who had just had a beautiful baby girl so I figured they were appropriate to celebrate my upcoming little girl! That's right, it's a girl. We found out about a month ago but the doctor only gave me a 90 percent certainty which just wasn't enough for me to believe him with my husband's family's strong man genes. After another ultrasound last week, I finally do believe him and I can't believe it's a little girl. My man is excited to have a little sweetie and my little guy is (theoretically) excited to have a little sister like his favorite Caillou. I'm just glad to know I'll have someone to keep me company in the kitchen, although my little guy is pretty good at that for now. We're all happy about this healthy, beautiful baby and these cookies are perfect to celebrate. They even taste great with mint filling (I use Guittard Mint Chips) but those would have been more for the boy variety...

I'll be back next week with Dorie's Parisian Apple Tart. I certainly couldn't skip something with apples or puff pastry (not to mention something French!)

Raspberry Cream Sandwich Cookies
From Martha Stewart's Cookies, page 93

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups plus 2 teaspoons sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved
6 ounces (1 cup) fresh raspberries
7 1/2 ounces best-quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup heavy cream (add 1 t. Meringue Powder)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
2. Mix butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add egg, extract, and vanilla seeds; mix until smooth. Reduce speed to low. Gradually mix in flour mixture.
3. Scoop batter using a 1-inch ice cream scoop; space 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
4. Bake cookies 4 minutes. Remove from oven; gently tap baking sheets on counter to flatten cookies. Return to oven, switching positions of sheets; bake until cookies are just set, 4 to 6 minutes more. Let cool on parchment on wire racks.
5. Puree raspberries and remaining 2 teaspoons sugar in a food processor. Pour mixture through a fine sieve into a small bowl, pressing to extract juice; discard seeds. Set mixture aside.
6. Melt white chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Remove from heat; whisk in cream in a slow stream. Whisk in reserved raspberry mixture. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
7. Spread 1 heaping teaspoon raspberry cream on the undersides of half the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies. Cookies can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container up to 2 days (no way will they last that long, though!)