I haven’t had a chance to make a lot of cookies this holiday season – the time keeps flying by, and I am struggling to keep up. I finally decided though it was time, I had to make some cookies, and I actually had an occasion to bring them to, which forced me into it. I wanted to find something simple that wouldn’t take very long, but that would look impressive.
My mother who was visiting brought with her the Fine Cooking holiday issue – filled with wonderful cookies, bars, muffins, etc… and there so many incredible looking sweets, I had to go with one of their recipes. Of course, I had to change it up just a little bit. There were some delicious sandwich cookies filled with jam, but I had some incredible milk chocolate from the farmer’s market that was calling me from the pantry. That was it – make the cookies, and instead of filling them with jam, I would fill them with the chocolate. Boy were these a hit. The cookies were very soft, and went perfectly with the delicate milk chocolate filling. They were like a decadent yet sophisticated party in your mouth.
I’m sure you can fill these cookies with whatever you have around – caramel, chocolate, jam, apple butters, etc… Experiment, and have fun – but most of all, save some time to enjoy them.
Ingredients
- 6-3/4 oz. (1-1/2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. table salt
- 1/4 tsp. baking powder
- 6 oz. (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
- 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
- Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean, or 1-1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 1 jar of milk chocolate
Preparation
Position the oven racks in the top and bottom thirds of the oven and heat the oven to 375°F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder until well blended. In another medium bowl, beat the butter on medium-high speed with an electric mixer (a hand-held works well) until smooth. Add the sugar and vanilla bean seeds or extract and continue beating until well combined, about 2 min. Add the eggs and beat until well blended, about 1 min. longer. Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until just blended, about 30 seconds.
Using a 1-tablespoon cookie scoop or two tablespoons, arrange heaping tablespoonfuls of the dough in mounds about 3 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets. Bake two sheets at a time, swapping the sheets’ positions half way through baking, until the edges are golden brown, 10 to 14 min.
Set the sheets on racks and let cool for 5 min. before transferring the cookies to the racks to cool completely. Using cooled cookie sheets, bake the remaining cookie dough.
If the cookies don’t come out perfectly round, take a round biscuit cutter just smaller than the cookie and trim them up. Once they are cooled, you can take a teaspoon of filling and carefully spread the back of one cookie. Place another on top.
For a printer-friendly version of this recipe, please click here: Soft and Chewy Vanilla Cookies with Milk Chocolate Filling
First Look, Then Cook 
These look delicious! I’m tempted to put them into my holiday cookie basket. These are definitely my kind of cookie.
Oh, these look so yummy. I bet they’d be amazing with a smudge of Nutella as the filling!
I was just going to suggest Nutella but I see it is already here! This looks amazing :)