Spice Sandwich Cookies

[I could not find this recipe on Martha's site to link to. Here's why I don't include the recipes in my posts.]

These are great and pretty quick despite a few of the more tedious steps in the recipe. Seriously, I am sometimes like, What the hell, Martha? with some of these recipes.

Like the first step, which is to take some whole spices (allspice, pepper, cardamom, and so on) and put them in your automatic spice grinder and grind them up. You know, in your spice grinder. That you probably own and use a lot. Because there’s no other way to acquire ground spices.

At the beginning of this bake-through project I would have considered buying a spice grinder and doing just that. But I’m older and wiser now and opted to just take a picture of the whole spices and then I used the ground versions I bought at the store. I just guessed at the amounts and probably used more than the whole spices would have yielded, but in the end things worked out just fine.

The wet ingredients include molasses, which is one of my favorite baking ingredients.

The wet and dry are mixed together with the mixer – it’s a very easy cookie recipe.

This dough is rolled into balls and the balls are rolled in sugar.

Those go onto a baking sheet.

And then you smoosh them a bit.

Next is another one of those “oh geez” steps, but I can see how it might improve your cookie results. You place the unbaked cookies in the freezer (I had to do some rearranging to fit both sheets in the freezer) and let them get firm and then your remove them and let them come to room temperature.  I know, I know.

And then you bake them.

They turn out really pretty and I think the freezing-then-thawing does help with that.

The filling is a simple mixture of cream cheese and apple butter.

This stuff is great and I had a lot left over so you better believe my morning bagel breakfasts just got a lot more exciting.

Next step, assembling the cookies sandwiches.

A little extra apple butter is spread on top of the cream cheese mixture.

These. Are. Fantastic. I think they’d be perfect in October at the first hint of autumn weather. They are divine.  The cookies have a crisp, sugary bite that changes to chewy, with a rich, spicy molasses flavor.  The fillings are perfect – tart apple and creamy cool tang from the cheese. Under-bake the cookies just a teeny bit and keep the cream cheese mixture as thick as you can to make them easier to bite into. Gah, they’re so good!

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