Description
It’s no secret that I love all things chocolate, and these vegan chocolate sandwich cookies hit the spot! Crisp chocolate shortbread cookies filled with a decadent ganache; these cookies are the ultimate chocolate indulgence! It’s the ultimate chocolate cookie that you could ever ask for.
Ingredients
Scale
Cookies:
- 2 sticks (224g) – vegan butter, softened at room temp
- 1 cup (180g) – powdered sugar, sifted
- 2 cups (288g) – all-purpose flour, spooned, leveled, and sifted, see notes
- ½ teaspoon – salt
- ¼ cup (40g) – cocoa powder, sifted
- 1 teaspoon – vanilla extract
Chocolate Ganache:
- ½ cup (90g) – semi-sweet chocolate, chopped https://amzn.to/3F3wJNk
- 4 tablespoons (60g) – non-dairy milk, I used soy
Equipment:
- Food scale, highly suggested, see notes
- Mixing bowls
- Electric hand mixer or stand mixer
- Rubber spatula
- Thin spatula
- Fine-mesh sieve
- Parchment paper
- 2 ½-inch round cookie cutter
- ½-inch round cookie cutter
- 2 large rimmed baking sheets
- Wire cooling rack
Instructions
Make the dough:
- Before starting, remove butter from the fridge and allow it to soften at room temp. About 20-30 minutes. Don’t be tempted to melt it! See notes
- In a bowl, combine together the sifted all-purpose flour, salt, and sifted cocoa powder. Set aside until ready to use.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a separate mixing bowl), cream the softened butter and powdered sugar. Mix until light and creamy.
- Next, reduce the speed and add in the dry ingredients. Mix until all the ingredients have been combined into a dough.
- Transfer the dough onto a work surface and lightly knead it until it becomes a smooth and cohesive dough.
Prepping the dough:
- Cut the dough in half, and cut out 2 long pieces of parchment. (Long enough to fold in half)
- Place one half of the dough on one side on a piece of long parchment. Fold the parchment paper in half and over the cookie dough. Roll the dough between the parchment paper until you get about under 1/4-inch thickness.
- Carefully place it on a baking sheet (for easy transfer), and place it in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes. Repeat for the second half of the dough.
- While you wait, preheat your oven to 350° Fahrenheit and line two large rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.
Baking
- After 20 minutes, remove one-half of the cookie dough from the fridge.
- Cut out your cookies with a 2 ½-inch round cutter and use a smaller cookie cutter to make a cutout in the center for half of the cookie dough. Re-roll out any dough scraps that remain and repeat the process to make use of all of the dough.
- Use a thin spatula to carefully slide under the cookies and to transfer them to your prepared baking sheet.
- Leave about 1 inch in between each cookie and bake the cookies for 10 minutes.
- Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool on the baking pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. They will be soft right when you take them out of the oven, but they will harden as they cool. Repeat for the rest of the cookie dough.
Making chocolate ganache:
- While you wait for all your cookies to cool, heat the non-dairy milk until simmering (you can also do this in the microwave). Pour the hot milk over the chocolate, wait a few seconds, then stir with a spatula to make a smooth ganache. Wait about 30 minutes before using (don’t use the ganache if it’s too hot).
Assembly:
- Spread a dollop of the ganache on the solid cookie and gently place the cutout cookie on top. Repeat with the remaining cookies and enjoy!
Notes
- Measure your flour properly. A common reason baked goods fail is incorrectly measured flour. I always recommend using a scale for accuracy when baking. This greatly improves your chance for success and lessens room for error. My recipes are 100% tested in grams.
- If you’re measuring by cups, avoid scooping the measuring cup directly into the flour. This tends to pack the flour into the cup, resulting in too much flour and a very dense or gummy finished product. Instead, aerate your flour (fluff it with a fork or spoon) and then spoon it into your measuring cups, leveling it with your finger or the back of a butter knife. Keep in mind though, this method is not guaranteed to be accurate.
- Watch this video from King Arthur on how to properly measure your flour if you don’t have a food scale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUSovVHpqsU
- Soften your butter. This recipe requires softened butter, so don’t be tempted to melt your butter because it will be greasy and messy and will not work for this recipe. With softened butter, the fat can be easily creamed together with sugar or used to coat flour particles.
- Roll your dough before chilling. When testing these cookies, I find that rolling your cooking dough between two parchment papers makes it easier to work with. So after you chill your rolled-out cookie dough, all you need to do is cut it out and bake!
- Chill your cookie dough! Because this cookie recipe has butter, chilling your cooking dough in the fridge solidifies the fat in the cookies. As it bakes, the butter takes longer to melt, and the cookies will spread less! DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!
Keywords: vegan, vegan cookies, vegan cookie recipe, cookie recipe, vegan sandwich cookies, vegan chocolate sandwich cookies, chocolate sandwich cookies, cookies
