Chocolate-Peppermint Sandwich Cookies with Peppermint-White Chocolate Brittle

As the holiday season was approaching, I pondered new and different cookie recipes to try this year. There are cookies that are good for giving as gifts in person and cookies that can withstand being mailed as gifts. There are also cookies that really only work for serving at home if they�re particularly fragile or require refrigeration. I was looking for options that fit into the first two categories. I also really wanted to spend some more time with a book that I bought a couple of years ago but hadn�t gotten around to mentioning here on the blog. It�s Cookie Love: More Than 60 Recipes and Techniques for Turning the Ordinary into the Extraordinary by Mindy Segal, and it�s full of what I might call special occasion cookies. Although there are some straightforward recipes in the book, several of the cookies require a multi-step process. That was the case with these sandwich cookies, but I can tell you that all the steps involved were worth it. Segal named this recipe The Black Sabbath after the band�s early music because of the intense, dark chocolate flavor of the cookies. As written, the filling is made with cream cheese and flavored with crushed Starlite Mints. Because I wanted to end up with a cookie that wouldn�t require refrigeration, I made a buttercream filling instead. And, because neither grocery store where I shop sells Starlite Mints, I added peppermint extract to the buttercream. Then, more chocolate appears for dipping the cookies, and they�re finished with shards of peppermint-white chocolate brittle. 

To make the cookies, you want to use a dark cocoa powder. In the past, I�ve used a very dark cocoa from Savory Spice Shop. This time, I found Droste cocoa powder from Holland, and it makes a lovely, dark, black cookie. The dough needs to be divided into two disks and chilled for several hours or overnight after being mixed. It was easy to roll between big pieces of parchment paper. Without the parchment, quite a lot of flour would have been needed for rolling since it is a sticky dough. After rolling to about a quarter inch thickness, the dough in the parchment layers should be placed on a sheet pan and chilled again before cutting the cookies. Each step works best when this dough is a bit cold. The cookies were cut, placed on baking sheets, and docked with a fork before baking. Once cooled, the cookies were matched up for best sandwich fitting. I made a simple buttercream with softened butter, melted white chocolate, confectioners� sugar, peppermint extract, a little vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt. Each cookie bottom was given a generous swirl of filling. Next, the brittle was made with more melted white chocolate and, since I couldn't find round mints, crushed candy canes. For the brittle, you want some varied texture in the crushed candy. It adds mint flavor, a little color, and some crunch to the brittle. The mixture was spread on a sheet pan and chilled until firm. To finish, dark chocolate and milk chocolate were melted together. The sandwich cookies were partially dipped into the melted chocolate and topped with broken pieces of the white chocolate brittle. 

The sweet mint candy and white chocolate balanced the dark chocolatey-ness nicely. This was a really fun cookie to make and to eat, and they hopefully made good cookie gifts. Happy Holidays and happy cookie baking to all of you! 

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