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Carrot cake sandwich cookies
These little cookies almost look like macarons, but the soft carrot cake texture of the cookies and the cream cheese filling are more like a cupcake in taste and texture.
Anna's Tips
- I love that these beautiful cookies can be made by hand, batter and frosting! I like to finely grate the carrots for these cookies – it draws out the colour, and because the cookies are “dainty” you get a more even carrot distribution in the batter.
- Use an ice cream scoop to portion the cookies precisely and drop the scoopfuls straight down onto the tray to hold their round shape.
- They only take 12 minutes to bake, but if making ahead to freeze, it’s best to make and bake the cookies ahead of time, but make the frosting and fill them after they’ve thawed.
SERVES
18
Ingredients
Cookies
- ½ cup (115 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup (100 grams) packed light brown sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla extract
- 1 cup (150 grams ) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon (1.5 grams) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (2.5 grams) baking soda
- ½ teaspoon (1.5 grams) ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon (1 gram) ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon (1 gram) salt
- 1 cup (100 grams) finely grated carrot
- ½ cup (50 grams) rolled oats
- ½ cup (50 grams) flaked sweetened coconut
- ½ cup (75 grams) dried currants
Filling
- ½ cup (125 grams) cream cheese, at room temperature
- ¼ cup (60 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup (65 grams) icing sugar, sifted
- 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Fahrenheit) and line two baking trays with parchment paper.
- For the cookies, beat the butter and brown sugar together by hand until well blended and almost fluffy. Beat in the egg, followed by the vanilla.
- Sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and stir until evenly combined. Stir in the carrots, followed by the oats and coconut. Stir in the currants.
- Use a small ice cream scoop to drop level spoonfuls of the batter onto the baking trays, leaving two inches (five centimetres) between them. It’s important to drop even scoops so that the cookies bake with nice domed tops.
- Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes, until they lift easily from the tray. Cool the cookies on the baking trays on wire racks.
- For the filling, beat the cream cheese and butter by hand until smooth. Add the icing sugar and vanilla and beat again until fluffy and well blended.
- To assemble the sandwiches, spoon the filling into a piping bag fitted with a large plain piping tip and pipe a layer of filling over the flat side of a cookie (or use a spatula to spread a generous dollop of the filling instead). Press a second cookie, flat side down, on top of the filling.
