The Summer of 2020 for me meant a lot of pie baking, and with that came a lot of buying of things that would help with pie baking like pie dishes, pie weights, and finally pie crust cutters! I had to buy some adorable leaf cutters and harvest cutters because I knew when it got to Autumn I would have to crack them out. They turned out to be great as cookie cutters for these harvest cookies!
Sugar cookies aren't usually my favourite, but these cookies are warmed with chai spices and filled with chocolate buttercream, so what's not to love? These are super buttery, sweet, spiced..these are just delicious. Now for the frosting, I'm not usually a huge fan of American buttercream but because there is only a small amount in each sandwich cookie it makes it perfectly balanced. These sugar cookies are adapted from this recipe on Food52.
Tips & FAQs
Make sure you cream the butter until it becomes light and fluffy. You want to whip these up and get lots of air in there, so be prepared to wait for a few minutes.
Make sure your dough has plenty of chill time in the fridge. You'll keep it in the fridge for at least an hour before you roll it out, then once you've cut out the cookies you can put them back in the fridge for 15 minutes. This will make it easier to keep their shape.
Once I cut out the middle of all the cookies, I kept the shapes and cooked those to have more mini cookies! If you don't want those though, you can just reroll out the dough to make more sandwich cookies.
Recipe
Chai Spiced Harvest Cookies with Chocolate Filling
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 425 grams flour
- 1 egg
- 226 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 170 grams sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
Chocolate Filling
- 56 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
- 227 grams icing sugar
- 2-3 tablespoon milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 23 grams cocoa powder
Instructions
Cookies
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and spices.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and extracts and mix until completely combined.
- Add the flour mixture all at once. Mix at a low speed until combined. Form into a disc and wrap in plastic, chill for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper. Roll out the chilled cookie dough on a floured work surface until ½" thick. Cut the dough using cookie cutters. I cut out 18 plain circles and 18 circles punched out with an autumn shape. Transfer the cookie to a baking sheet and chill in fridge for 15 minutes
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden around the edges. Cool completely.
Chocolate Frosting
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the butter until light and and creamy.
- Add the cocoa powder and beat on low speed until completely combined.
- Add the icing sugar, vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of milk. Beat on a low speed and increase to high, beating until light and fluffy. Add another tablespoon if the frosting seems too stiff.
Assembly
- Take the cooled plain circles and using a small offset spatula, spread chocolate frosting on the cookie. Top with another circle. If you wish you can sprinkle some sugar or cinnamon sugar on top!
Sarah Jones
I was looking for a chai spiced biscuit recipe and this was perfect! I have since made them myself twice and even sent the recipe to my mum who also loved them - the perfect cozy fall biscuit to have in the biscuit tin (not that they stayed in there for very long :D)
Ella
Thank you so much!!