Strawberries & Cream Almond Cookie Sandwiches
These incredibly soft almondy cookies are litttle bites of strawberries and cream heaven. Two buttery biscuits are loaded with strawberries and sandwiched together with a silky smooth strawberries and cream filling.
Zutaten
For the cookies
- 250 g gluten-free plain flour blend
- 100 g ground almonds
- 100 g white caster sugar
- 125 g unsalted butter
- 1 medium egg
- 1 medium egg yolk
- 10 g freeze-dried strawberries
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ tsp Xanthan Gum
For the filling
- 125 g unsalted butter softened
- 250 g icing sugar sifted
- 10 g freeze-dried strawberries
- 2 tbsp double-cream
Anleitungen
- Preheat the oven to 150°C Fan and line a baking tray with baking paper.
- In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until well combined.
- Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract and whisk again on medium-speed until well combined. Try not to overmix as an over aerated mixture will give too much rise to the cookies.
- Blend the freeze-dried strawberries in a blender until a powder forms or, if larger pieces are desired, crumble roughly into smaller pieces.
- Add the flour, ground almonds, strawberries, salt and xanthan gum and mix until a soft dough forms. If using a stand mixer, the dough handle can be used.
- Roll the dough out to a 5mm thickness between two pieces of baking paper so as to avoid using any extra flour as this will dry out the dough. Place the rolled out dough into the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour.
- Once chilled, cut out the biscuits using fluted cookie cutter. Cut one top and one base per sandwich cookie.
- Place on the baking tray at 1 inch intervals. Gather any cut-offs into a ball of dough and place in the fridge to chill during batches.
- Bake the cookies on the middle shelf for 8-10 minutes. The cookies will still be pale in colour but starting to turn golden around the edges.
- Allow the cookies to cool for several minutes before transferring them to cool completely on a cooling rack before filling.
- For the filling, combine all of the ingredients for the buttercream filling in a mixer. It is important that the butter is softened to room temperature for this. Whisk up the buttercream filling until light and fluffy and all ingredients have been well combined.
- Transfer the mixture to a piping bag fitted with an open-star nozzle, and pipe the buttercream in a swirl onto the base cookies. Place the top cookies on top and dust with a light coating of icing sugar if desired.
Notizen
* Chilling the dough for at least 30 minutes to an hour before rolling out is imperative if you want to avoid a biscuit that spreads and comes out of the oven all misshapen. I like to chill my dough between batches, gathering up the cut-offs and wrapping it in clingfilm again before placing in the fridge. Do this whenever you think your dough might be getting too warm to work with.
*Rolling the dough out between two sheets of baking paper will make it easier to cut the cookies after chilling and prevent having to use a floured surface to avoid the dough sticking which will make the dough drier.
*I like my cookies to be around 5mm in thickness but if you'd prefer slightly thinner cookies, just remember that they will bake more quickly and the baking time will need to be reduced accordingly.