Chocolate Orange Sandwich Cookies

These are eggless Italian cookies that I saw few days back in FoodNetwork.I decided to give it a try as I was searching for Chocolate fruit combination and they were eggless.So that made it all the more better.They turned out nicely and here they are.

Ingredients:

Cookies:
Butter: Unsalted at room temperature:1 stick
CornMeal:1/2 cup
All Purpose Flour:1/2 cup
Sugar:1/3 cup
Cocoa Powder:2 tbsp
Baking Powder:3/4 tsp
Salt:a pinch
Orange Zest: 1/4 orange

Filling:
Cream cheese:2 tbsp
Butter:1 tbsp
Orange zest:1/4 orange
Orange Juice: 2 tsp
Powdered white sugar: 3 tbsp or more per taste

Preparation:

Cookies:
In a bowl,mix cornmeal,flour,cocoa powder,baking powder and salt.Keep aside.

Cream butter and sugar using a mixer till light and fluffy.I used hands ie 2 forks to cream these.If you are using hands like me then you have to keep on beating the sugar and butter for 10-15 minutes or more depending on your patience.Also you can powder the sugar so that creaming with hands becomes easy.

To the butter-sugar mix,add the dry ingredients little at a time and mix well.Take your own time to knead the ingredients and finally you will be left with a dough.Put the dough in a plastic wrap,gather into a round ball and chill in the fridge for minimum 30 minutes.

Remove the dough from the fridge and roll it out within the sheet itself to 1/4 inch thickness.It saves the rolling pin and your hands from getting dirty.

Using a cooking cutter of preferred shape or your hands cut into cookies and place on the baking sheet.I am bad at shaping with or without a cookie cutter.So I used the latter option.This option is also better if your dough is still crumbly.I made small balls of the dough and then flattened them in my palms and put them on the baking sheet.

You have to keep cookies a little distance apart on the baking sheet,as they tend to expand and stick together if they are close enough and we may have to tear them apart if this happens.

Bake on a preheated oven at 350F for exactly 15 minutes.Cool the cookies.Even if you feel they are not hard enough,not to worry as they harden upon cooling.

Fresh from the oven..

Filling:
In a bowl mix together all the ingredients for filling.

Take a cookie,Put a dollop of filling and close with another cookie.Do so with all other cookies.They are very tasty as such,but sandwiched,they are heavenly.



The final product....


(I have filled my cookies more than a dollop,as you can see...)

Sending this off to Monthly Mingle -Fruit & Chocolate hosted by Meeta of Whats For Lunch Honey.