Cream Wafers – Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• ½ cup heavy cream (whipping cream, not sour cream)
• 2 cups flour, all purpose white flour
• Pinch of salt (tip of a tea spoon)
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Colored sugar (optional, for sprinkling on top)
• Granulated sugar (for dipping)
Filling Ingredients:
• ¼ cup soft butter
• ¾ cup confectioner (powdered) sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (I prefer rum extract)
• 1 ½ oz unsweetened baker’s chocolate, melted (I melt it in a microwave for 1 ½ minutes, stirring halfway through).
• Few drops of food coloring (optional, and only if you do not use chocolate)

Instructions

1. Combine butter and cream, and mix thoroughly.
2. Mix in extracts.
3. Add flour and mix well.
4. Flour your hands, and divide the dough into, an orange size, balls.
5. Place balls in a bowl, cover, and chill in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, or overnight.
6. For easier handling later on, I flatten each ball into a disc of about 1/4 inch thickness and wrap it in parchment paper or saran wrap before cooling it in the fridge.
7. Take out one ball (disc) at a time, and massage it gently, by squishing it in your hands, for 8-10 seconds.
8. Flatten the ball, place it on a floured work area, and roll out to 1/8 inch thickness.  (Sprinkle the dough lightly with flour as you are rolling it out.  However, use the flour sparingly as not to make the dough too dense, which will take away the flakiness of the cookies).
9. Keep remaining dough balls in the fridge.
10. Using a cookie cutter, cut out 1½ inch cookies (I use a circular shape).
11. Spread a generous amount of granular sugar on a dinner plate and set aside.
12. Transfer the rounds onto the sugar.
13. Sugar coat both sides of each cookie round by pressing them lightly with your fingers, then gently place each on an ungreased cookie sheet. They do not need to be spread far apart on the cookie sheet as they do not spread out during baking, but rather puff upwards.
14. Prick each cookie with a fork, about 4 times, (it lets the steam out during baking, helping it to puff out).
15. If you choose to sprinkle these with colored sugar, this is the time to do it.
16. Gather the remaining dough from your work area, form into a ball and follow the above process until all the dough is used up. (I try to work with all the fresh dough balls first, as these make the best cookies.  The remnants of the dough from cut outs should be kept refrigerated until ready to use again.  At the end remove the dough remnants from the fridge, form them all into a ball, flatten, and follow the above rolling/cutting process until it is used up. These cookies will get denser with each roll out, due to the additional flour used during this process.  So use as little additional flour as possible). Place in a preheated oven at 375o for 7-9 minutes, or just until set, so they remain very light in color, or they begin to melt and harden.
17. Remove and cool on cookie racks.
18. You can serve them as single cookies, or use the prepared filling and make them into sandwich cookies.
filling
19. Cream all ingredients well, to spreading consistency.
20. Add a drop of water, one at a time, if needed.
21. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.
22. Spread filling on the bottom side of each cookie, and cover it with another bottom side cookie (sandwich like).
23. Repeat until all are filled.

Notes