Despite always being a total chocolate fiend, my favorite cookies used to be jelly sandwich cookies. My brother and I would have in-depth, philosophical discussions about the best way to eat them. Should you nibble around the edge and leave the middle until the end? Or is it better to prise off the top layer and eat the non-jelly-covered side as an amuse-bouche, before enjoying the finest of open-face cookie sandwiches? I’ve even eaten one upside down to see if it would taste better, which actually just gave me the hiccups.
What I do know is that these cookies are better than the originals. The almond flavor in the cookies works beautifully to balance out the tart fruity flavors of the jelly, and every bite is delightful. However you eat them.
Makes 4 or 5 sandwich cookies
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup ground almonds
- 1/2 cup buckwheat flour, plus extra for dusting
- pinch of Himalayan pink salt
- 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil, softened but not melted*
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Berry Chia Jelly, for filling
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Mix together the ground almonds, buckwheat flour, and salt in a mixing bowl, then add the maple syrup, coconut oil, and vanilla and knead together until you have a dough.
- Transfer the dough to a work surface dusted with a little buckwheat flour. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin until it’s about 1/4-inch thick, then use a round cutter to cut out 8 or 10 cookies. I have a cutter with a heart shape in the center all ready to stamp out, but if you don’t have one of these, use something like a bottle top to cut out a little circle from the center of half the cookies for the tops of the cookie sandwiches.
- Place the cookies on the lined baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, then let them cool completely.
- Place a teaspoon of the jelly on each whole cookie and sandwich with the cookies with cut-out centers. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days or freeze for 1 month.
*Top tip: You want the coconut oil to be soft enough so that you can cream it into the dough (as you would do with butter), but not too soft, otherwise the mixture won’t be as easy to cut into shapes. So if it’s super hard, put it in an ovenproof dish and pop it in the oven for 30 seconds while the oven is preheating, to help it soften.
Also from Vegan Treats:
Reprinted with permission from Vegan Treats: Easy Vegan Bites and Bakes by Emma Hollingsworth and published by Kyle Books, 2019.