12.20.18
I’m continuing my cookie extravaganza with one of my personal favorites from our Christmas party. I still had a jar of apple butter in my fridge from last winter. It keeps extremely well and even though apples are all over fall baking, I think they transition splendidly into winter. While I was baking up a storm full of peppermint and eggnog flavors I thought something with apple would be a nice contrast. I made my easy shortbread cookie recipe from here, rolled them thinner and obviously changed the flavor profile. They melted in my mouth and my apartment smelled like cardamom heaven as they baked. That cute little star you cut out can be their own treat! I drizzled the centers with white and dark chocolate and set them out for snacking on their own.
Apple butter is usually a large batch cooking situation, so have some extra mason jars handy and use it on biscuits, English muffins, inside of cupcakes, on toast, on vanilla ice cream, or as a last minute gift. Some easy recipes for apple butter can be found here:
All Recipes – All Day Apple Butter
Sugar Spun Run – Slow Cooker Apple Butter
Baking a Moment – Stovetop option
Cardamom Apple Butter Sandwiches
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup confectioners sugar + extra for dusting
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cardamom
- 1 cup apple butter
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and salt, set aside
- In a stand up mixer with a paddle attachment, cream butter until fluffy, about 3 minutes
- On low speed, add in confectioners sugar and allow to combine
- Add in flour mix one heaping 1/2 cup at a time, allow to just combine before adding in more, scrape down sides of bowl as necessary
- Add in cardamom and allow to combine, the dough should come together almost creating a ball in the bowl
- Lightly flour a surface and rolling pin, roll dough into 1/4 inch thick, chill dough for 15-20 minutes
- Preheat oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with parchment paper
- Once chilled, using a fluted cookie cutter, stamp out cookies, transferring them to lined baking sheets, continue rerolling dough scraps and stamping out more cookies until all is used (I got 26)
- Using a small fluted cookie cutter of any shape, stamp out the center of half the cookies (these can also be baked!)
- Chill cookies until oven is preheated, then bake for 12-15 minutes, keep an eye on them around 11/12 minute mark to make sure they don’t brown too fast, they may look slightly underset when removed from oven
- Allow to cool fully before removing from baking sheet
- Transfer apple butter to piping bag with the tip cut off, pipe a small amount of apple butter on the halves WITHOUT the center cut out, make sure not to overfill so it doesn’t ooze out when assembled
- Place the other half of cookies with center cut out on top of cookies with apple butter to create sandwich
- Dust with additional confectioners sugar and keep in airtight container. If not enjoying in the next 48 hours feel free to refrigerate and bring to room temperature before eating, otherwise no refrigeration is needed.
