Buttery Vanilla Sandwich Cookies

I have been thinking about the blog more seriously this month. I have about forty posts now, written over more than two years, and they are inconsistent in frequency and length but consistent in something harder to name: they are honest. They are what I actually experienced. Several people have emailed through the blog contact page, which I did not expect anyone to actually use, and they have said things like: I grew up in care and I recognized what you wrote, and I started cooking again after reading your post about the biscuits. I respond to every email.

This week I made my first attempt at real macarons, which is the most technically demanding cookie I have tried. The French kind, the smooth domed sandwich cookies with ganache filling, which require aging the egg whites and folding the batter to exactly the right consistency and piping perfect circles and not opening the oven. My first batch cracked on the shells, which means the batter was too stiff or the oven too hot or both. My second batch were bumpy, which means slightly wrong folding. My third batch were almost right: smooth tops, but the feet, the ruffled edges that form at the bottom, were uneven.

I am not done with macarons. Gloria heard me describing the process on the phone and said: why are you making something French? I said because I want to see if I can. She laughed and said: well. There you go. She approves of wanting to see if you can. That is how she has always cooked. That is how I learned to cook.

After three batches of macarons with cracked shells and uneven feet, I wanted something that would actually come together — something that still gave me two smooth halves and a filling in between, but without the aged egg whites and the oven anxiety. These buttery vanilla sandwich cookies are what I landed on. They are not macarons, but they scratch the same itch: precise, delicate, and deeply satisfying when you press the two halves together and they fit.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes (includes chilling) | Servings: 18 sandwich cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling:

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon heavy cream
Pinch of fine sea salt

Instructions

Cream the butter. Beat the softened butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add vanilla extract and salt and mix until combined.
Add the flour. Gradually mix in the flour on low speed until a soft dough forms. Do not overmix.
Chill the dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, until firm enough to roll.
Shape the cookies. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Roll the dough to about 1/4-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 1 1/2-inch rounds using a cookie cutter. Place on parchment-lined baking sheets about 1 inch apart.
Bake. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are just barely golden. The tops should remain pale. Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the filling. Beat 4 tablespoons softened butter until smooth. Add the sifted powdered sugar, vanilla, cream, and pinch of salt. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Assemble. Match cookies into pairs of similar size. Pipe or spread about 1 teaspoon of filling onto the flat side of one cookie, then press the flat side of its partner gently on top. Do not press so hard that the filling squeezes out the edges.

Nutrition (per serving)

Buttery Vanilla Sandwich Cookies — Because I Wanted to See If I Could