Glittering Cookie Recipe! Happy Holidays from Purl Soho!
When the new Gourmet Cookie Book came out just in time for the holidays this year, we ran out to our favorite local bookstore, McNally Jackson, to get it. Since many of us here at Purl Soho grew up with Gourmet Magazine, it holds a special place in our hearts and we deeply miss its presence in our lives. The new cookie book is a compilation of the most delicious cookie recipe from each year of the magazine’s 68-year existence which spans 1941-2009. It seems almost too good to be true!
We were so excited about the book that we decided to adapt one of the recipes for our Purl Bee readers to enjoy over the holidays. Since we share a common love for anything almond flavored here at Purl Soho, we turned their Glittering Lemon Sandwich Cookies from the book into our Glittering Almond Sandwich cookies. Yum! To adorn the cookies, we wanted to find the sparkliest sanding sugars possible. We were thrilled to find these at Williams-Sonoma. The large granules of sugar really catch the light and make the cookies sparkle before your eyes. Each cookie truly looks like a gem.
Glittering Sandwich Cookies
(adapted from The Gourmet Cookie Book)
Makes approximately 5 dozen cookies.
Cookies
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract
Sanding sugars in various colors
Filling
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons almond extract
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
You will also need:
Parchment paper
Electric mixer
Offset Spatula
To Make Cookies:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place flour, cornstarch and salt in a bowl, mix togetgher and set aside.
With electric mixer, mix butter, confectioners’ sugar, almond extract and vanilla until fluffy.
Add flour mixture and mix on low until dough forms.
Place each sanding sugar into a small bowl.
Roll dough into balls, 1/2-inch in diameter, then roll balls in sanding sugar. Place balls on parchment lined baking sheet, 3/4-inch apart.
Bake for 9-11 minutes. Bottoms should just be turning golden. Remove and place on cooling racks.
To Make Filling:
With electric mixer, mix all filling ingredients on medium until combined.
Complete Cookies:
With offset spatula place approximately 1/4 teaspoon of filling on half a cookie, sandwich the other half to form a ball.
Cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Happy baking and happy holidays from all of us at Purl Soho!
Those look really good. Almost too good to eat!
these look amazing!!!! I love that they are almond flavored too!
Yum! Wait…so you cut the balls in half after you bake them?
They look amazing! Must try these. How many cups is a stick of butter?
Oh Purl Bee, I love you so!
These look so pretty; thank you. Happy Holidays!
Oh they look beautiful and yummy.
Hi Abi,
The cookies become half spheres when you bake them, no cutting necessary!
Hi M.,
One stick of butter is generally 1/2 cup.
how so very nice of you to post a recipe…such a sweet departure from the norm, and generous of you all to share, thank you!
I was thrilled to find a box full of old Gormet magazines at a tag sale last year and carefully scanned all of our favorite recipes into my files. I miss that magazine so very much. It made me a much better cook and I even got a job as a dinner cook once using one of their recipes, so it is a wonderful memory in my heart.
Hi
Did you maybe mean to say mix the flours, then mix the butter with the sugar?
They are so pretty but I think perhaps that small mistake in the instructions could cause a few issues.
when I first looked at these I thought they were handknit and felted! they look amazing! Merry Christmas!
Reblogged and linked back to you. Thank you so much. Hope that's okay. Merry Christmas!
I would like to do the Christmas cookies. Are you sure it would take 1 1/3 cups of cornstarch?
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place flour, cornstarch and sugar in a bowl, mix togetgher and set aside. – that shouldn't say sugar – should be salt…..
Ah ha! Thanks for the answer!!! And of course, thanks for the recipe!
Question: You list "sugar" and "confectioner's sugar" in the directions, but only list confectioner's sugar in the ingredients. Is this a typo or am I misreading something?
Thanks for a beautiful cookie!
Hi Terri,
Yes, it's 1 and 1/3 cup of cornstarch.
Hi Julie,
Thanks, we fixed the error you pointed out.
Hi Heather,
It was a typo and is all fixed now.
I just finished baking these. They were delicious, but my family and I had a few issues with the cookies. The first problem was that we made the cookie balls too big. This is a problem because the cookies are very crumbly, and they break into millions of pieces when you bite them. Another problem we had was that the two tablespoons of almond extract in the filling is VERY strong. If you like almonds, then it tastes great, but you should be weary otherwise. After we tasted the first batch, we decided to make another and forgo the sugar coating. While beautiful, it made the cookies too sweet for most people in my family.
These looked so pretty & festive, I had to make them for our Christmas Eve party. I went back to the original recipe because I was a little confused by all the corn starch ( I've never made anything that required that much), and was pleased to find that they were made with lemon & lemon zest rather than almond. I love almond, but it was sounding too over the top for me at that moment. I will definitely make these again, probably sticking with lemon and 1 level tsp full size, not the heaping ones I used. This was the most pleasing dessert I made this holiday season, thanks for the motivation Purl Bee folks.
These look so pretty and yummy! I love glitter so much, so this tops it off for me 🙂
Its looks yummy. These cookies are very different from other cookies I know. This is a great holiday gift for my friends. Thanks a lot for the recipe.
We made the cookies. My son didn't want the almond flavoring, so we used vanilla. They were crumbly and a little on the large size. We used them for his wedding reception on Monday. They looked beautiful. We found the sanding sugars in gold and silver and had blue and clear at home. Thanks for the recipe.
Thank you so much for the beautiful cookie recipe! I have a brand new blog http://www.wakingupinvegas.com with about 1 reader (my mom), but I featured your cookies in my last post! I've been following you forever and love your projects.
Thanks!
Heather
So beautiful! I have to watch myself from things like that (:
Can I refrigerate/freeze extra dough I don't have time to use right now?
Lovely! These are gorgeous! I think I'm going to have to try them for my cookie tins this year.
WoW…thought I'd love these. They are adorable…little puffs of sugar and almond-iness aren't they? Cut the recipe for the filling in half, fourths maybe even too much frosting for the recipe. I have enough frosting here to feed an army. Take note of the instructions…1/4 tsp filling per cookie. LOL
Love these glittering cakes! Will try them for sure!
do these freeze well?
Hi Jaime-
They do. Thanks for your question
Molly
Yummy AND pretty? Who could resist?
I have tried the recipe and 2 tablespoons seems a lot for the almond extract for the filling. Should it be 2 teaspoons?
Hi Katy-
It's not a typo but it is VERY almondy! You might want to do 2 tsp instead!
Thank you!
Molly