Made from the best chocolate pie crust recipe, these cookies are filled with an almond-scented cream cheese filling. They are wonderfully simple to make, can be frozen, made in advance, and cut out any shape you want.
I spent a lot of time looking for the best chocolate pie crust and finally found it. It turns out that it makes the best sandwich cookies, one of my favorites from childhood!
Like most great recipes, these resulted from leftover dough after making who knows what. I had a brunch coming up and decided to use it and make cookies.
Turns out I also had cream cheese frosting because I always do. So, leftover pie dough and leftover frosting resulted in these sandwich chocolate cookies.
Ingredient list
- Cocoa powder: always use unsweetened. I like Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder, Ghirardelli Premium baking cocoa, and Scharffen Berger natural cocoa powder. And, in my experience, the dark ones are the best (this does not apply to the super dark used for making homemade Oreo cookies known as dark cocoa powder).
- Unsalted butter.
- Egg yolk: binds the dough together and adds richness, making it more pliable and easy to handle.
- Powdered sugar: also called confectioners or icing sugar, you can easily buy it online. Domino powdered sugar is a very popular one.
- Flour: I use cake or all-purpose flour and have great results with both.
- Salt: I like using kosher salt or fine sea salt when baking. But regular table salt works just fine.
- Vanilla: I use pure vanilla extract or pure vanilla paste when available, but a good vanilla essence (artificially flavored) also works.
- Cream cheese: the regular type, full-fat cream cheese is needed for consistency and creaminess. I always use Philadelphia original cream cheese, but other premium brands work fine.
- Flavoring: I use almond extract, but you can choose other flavors like ground cinnamon, coconut extract, coffee extract, chocolate, and peanut butter.
Making the chocolate dough
As mentioned before, these are sandwich cookies made with my favorite chocolate dough. The full recipe with detailed instructions is in this chocolate pie crust post.
So go ahead and make the dough, put it in the refrigerator and you're ready to roll, pun intended.
Rolling the dough
- Cold dough: it is essential so take it out of the refrigerator and let it loose some of its coldness at room temperature until it can be rolled. At first, it will seem too solid, but it will quickly start to lose temperature.
- Floured surfaces: always start with a lightly floured counter or surface. You can always add more flour later. Lightly flour the rolling pin and maybe the top of the dough. Don't overdo it until you start rolling and see how much flour the dough needs. You only want enough not to make it stick.
Vintage Kitchen tip: if the dough starts to soften too much during rolling and cutting, gather it, wrap it in plastic, and return it to the refrigerator or freezer (much faster) for several minutes until it hardens again. Try to have it cold at all times.
- Cookie cutters: you can use any cookie cutter you want. Besides the regular round cookie cutter used for sandwich cookies, I also use flowers and stars. Metal or plastic cutters both work fine.
- Thickness: how thick you roll the dough depends on what you want to bake. For filled cookies, I suggest no more than ½ inch. If you want single cookies like the image below, I say up to 1 inch is fine.
This crust is wonderful to work with because the shapes stay formed after baking.
Cream cheese filling
The frosting we all love is what I used to fill these sandwiches.
The truth is that I was trying to recreate a favorite cookie when I was growing up and decided to start with some leftover cream cheese frosting in the fridge after making the hummingbird cake.
A few drops of almond extract and boom! my smile came back as I bit into my childhood memories.
Other fillings can be chocolate ganache, peanut butter, or dulce de leche.
- Airtight containers - I like to use metal tins. But any container with an airtight lid will work.
- Freezing - you can freeze the cut cookies before baking. I put the whole baking sheet in the freezer and bake it directly.
If you store already filled cookies they will soften as the days go by because the moisture from the cream cheese seeps into the dough.
Related recipes you might like:
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Chocolate Sandwich Cookies Recipe
Made from the best chocolate pie crust, this chocolate cookie sandwich recipe is easy, can be frozen, cut out in any shape, and filled with different flavors and fillings.
- Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
- Yield: 15 sandwich cookies
Ingredients
For the chocolate cookies:
- 1 ¼ cups (190g) all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons (15g) unsweetened cocoa powder
- Pinch of salt
- â…“ cup (50g) powdered sugar
- ½ cup (115g) unsalted butter, cold and in small pieces
- 1 egg yolk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Ice water if needed (see Notes below)
For the frosting:
- 2.5oz (70g) regular cream cheese, at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons (30g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup powdered sugar (you might need more)
- ¼ teaspoon pure almond extract
Instructions
For the chocolate cookies:
- In the food processor: put dry ingredients in the processor's bowl. Mix to combine.
- Add butter cubes and pulse a few times to mix. The butter should be the size of peas, roughly.
- Add the egg yolk and vanilla if using, and pulse a few times until it moistens the mixture but be careful not to start making a ball.
- By hand: put dry ingredients in a large bowl. Stir to combine.
- Scatter butter cubes on top. Use your hands or a pastry cutter to incorporate the butter into the flour until it's the size of peas.
- Add egg yolk and vanilla if using, and mix with a fork until moistened. The dough will be irregular, as it's harder to incorporate it evenly by hand.
- For both methods: dump the shaggy mass onto a counter or working surface.
- Start bringing it together with your hands. At first, it will appear never to bind or come together correctly. But it will.
- Keep turning it onto itself until you have a solid dough.
- Wrap it in a plastic or freezer bag and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. This is a crucial step for getting tender and flaky dough that's easily rolled.
For the frosting:
- In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy.
- Add powdered sugar in parts and beat until you have a very thick filling that is lump-free. You might need more or less of sugar depending on the butter and cream cheese you use.
- Add extract, beat until smooth and keep refrigerated covered, until ready to use.
Assembling the sandwich cookies:
- Take the chocolate dough from the refrigerator until you can roll it. It has to be cold, and it will be tough at first to roll.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or butter the pan.
- Lightly flour a clean surface and roll the dough about ¼ inch thick. You want thin cookies as they will be filled.
- Cut cookies with your designated cookie cutter and place them on the baking sheets, separated an inch from each other.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, until dry and slightly soft. They will harden when they cool.
- Let cool for a few minutes and carefully lift them with a spatula, and transfer to a wire rack. Let cool completely.
- Fill one cookie with ½ to 1 teaspoon of cream cheese filling and press another cookie on top to make a sandwich.
- Keep in airtight containers. See Notes below on how to store them.
Notes
- Ice water: this recipe doesn't use liquid, and though it might seem like the dough will never come together into a ball, it does. But, if you make it by hand, it might be harder to form into a ball as the butter distributes differently than when using the food processor. You can add ice water by teaspoons at a time (put some ice cubes in a glass, cover it with water, and use the cold water) which will help everything bind together. Don't add too much that you end up with wet dough.
- Cookie cutters: you can use any cookie cutter you want. Besides the regular round cookie cutter used for sandwich cookies, I also use flowers and stars. Metal or plastic cutters both work fine.
- Thickness: how thick you roll the dough depends on what you want to bake. I suggest no more than ½ inch for filled cookies such as these ones. If you want single cookies, I say up to 1 inch is fine.
- Airtight containers: I like to use metal tins to store the cookies before being filled. But any container with an airtight lid will work. If you store already-filled cookies, they will soften as the days go by because the moisture from the cream cheese seeps into the dough.
- Freezing: you can freeze the cut cookies before baking. I put the whole baking sheet in the freezer and bake it directly.
- Flavoring: I use almond extract, but you can choose other flavors like ground cinnamon, coconut extract, coffee extract, chocolate, and peanut butter.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Refrigeration time: 60 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: International
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/15
- Calories: 191
- Sugar: 15.9 g
- Sodium: 31.4 mg
- Fat: 9.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 24.6 g
- Fiber: 0.5 g
- Protein: 2 g
- Cholesterol: 37.5 mg
Keywords: chocolate sandwich cookies
Sonia says
Oh my goodness these look so amazing! I have never made cookies at home but you have explained it so well that I think I can make them. Adding the Ingredients to my grocery list. Making them this weekend..