Spicy Sandwich Cookies with Lemon Frosting

It's the weekend and that means I've got time for experimenting with recipes and making special dinners. I've been busy!

Look at these beauties! Isn't this just the prettiest little Leaning Tower of  Pisa pile of sandwich cookies?  I am thinking so. Lynne, over at milk n cookiezzz , made the most gorgeous little spicy star cookies back at the beginning of January and I have been waiting for a chance to try a little add-on. I love the flavors of ginger and spices with lemon and I have been fixated on finding a good rolled cookie recipe that incorporates those spices plus five-spice powder in a slightly crispy cookie that is rolled and cut so that two layers can be put together with a lemony cream cheese and butter icing.

Lynne's cookie recipe gave me enough cookies to have close to three dozen sandwiches, which I thought was a goodly number to finish off with the icing. They won't last long, but I already have another idea for frosting - what do you think of an apple butter icing made with cream cheese and apple butter? It sounds pretty yummy to me! I'm getting the cart before the horse, though!

I started with this old cookie cutter that's been bangin' around in the cupboard for a good long time. I like the shape because it just screams 'tea cookie' ! I also started with a really clean drainboard ... my cold rolling surface.

The dough is rolled with minimal flour ... and it's thin. Between 1/8 and a 1/4 inch thick. I used my trusty icing spatula to run between the cookies and the drainboard to bring them up and over to the cookie sheets.

As you can see, I jammed as many into a roll-out as humanly possible ... the dough was gathered, smushed and rolled out again to cut more. It kept its malleability and didn't get dry and yucky ... because I'd kept the drainboard flour to a minimum. Didn't waste (read eat) much spare dough.

So, while the last batch baked, I cleaned up one mess and started getting ready to make another. I used half a block of cream cheese, three tablespoons of butter, two cups of confectioner's sugar, lemon zest, and about a tablespoon and a half of lemon juice to make a really citrus-y frosting.

Just as an aside, what on Earth did we EVER do without Microplane graters ? I ask you.

Okay. I had a system for this part of assembly, so that my entire kitchen countertop wasn't one big layer of spice cookies. I matched the thicknesses of the finished cookies and paired them off with the sandwich center facing up and its mate under it. I thought I was clever. What can I say? Well, maybe not clever, just more organized than I usually am.

The beauty of this system was such that it allowed me to divvy up the frosting evenly among all the cookies before I started putting them together. I used all the frosting and got it distributed really well. Like I said, I was organized!

When the spice cookies were assembled, it was all about finding pretty platters and taking pictures ... and oogling them! I only ate one while I was doing all this oogling. I chilled the others to get the frosting to the point that I could snap off a bite and not have the frosting gush out from between the layers. Sooo yummy!

Just sayin ...

Spiced Brown Sugar Cut-Out Cookies - printer friendly

Psssst! Last year on this day - When the Moon Hits Your Eye - Pizza!