First things first - I owe Giada de Laurentiis an apology for calling her cooking "antiseptic Italian" in the previous blog post. This recipe came from her cooking show and it is OUTSTANDING! She began the segment by claiming anytime she makes these for a party, the guests devour them - I believe her!
My ears perked-up when Giada mentioned using orange zest (I adore citrus!) and I was curious about the cornmeal. The cornmeal gives the cookie a fantastic crunchy texture which perfectly compliments the luxuriously smooth orange creme filling.
Anything more I could say will fall short of how scrumptious these beauties are.
So, without further adieu....Presenting the greatest cookie recipe ever....
THE ITALIAN CHOCOLATE SANDWICH COOKIE !!!
http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/italian-chocolate-sandwich-cookie.html
A couple of suggestions that aren't included in the recipe:
- Roll out dough between plastic wrap.
- Roll out dough in small amounts at a time.
- Dough MUST remain cold to work with effectively.
- Slide a fork under cut-out cookie to lift from dough.
- Don't be tempted to use a larger cookie cutter than 1 3/4".
- I used a Sil-Pat on top of air-bake baking sheet.
- Recipe calls for baking time to be 15 minutes. I pulled cookies out at 12 minutes. Just keep an eye on this.
- Fill cookies when they are cool.
- The "Filling" recipe portion is not enough to accommodate the whole cookie recipe. I baked half the dough and almost used all the filling.
They do require a little effort, but they're worth it!