Deb Perelman's second cookbook, Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant & Unfussy New Favorites, is now available, five years after she began work on it. In a blog post announcing the release, Perelman expressed her usual pre-publication nerves and shared hopes that readers will find new favorite recipes, from granola biscotti to a vegetarian matzo ball soup and a Party Cake Builder with seven one-bowl cakes and four frostings.
The book, she wrote, is a thank you to the Smitten Kitchen community for 11 years of reading, cooking, and sharing. Among the recipes she highlighted is one that had long seemed too labor-intensive for home baking: the bakery-style jam and chocolate cookie sandwiches that were a staple of her high school job at a local bakery.
Perelman worked at that bakery several times a week after school, but never on Tuesdays—Cookie Day—when two sisters had the shift and never traded it. She covered it only once in more than two years, and remembers it as "the best Tuesday of my life." The cookies she recalls were long, star-shaped butter cookies filled with jam, dipped in chocolate, and rolled in sprinkles, nuts, or coconut.
Today, she wrote, similar cookies from bakeries are often ordered from a central supplier and artificially flavored, making them underwhelming. But the homemade version, she discovered, is "astoundingly easy" with real butter, good vanilla, and sea salt. The dough is ready to bake immediately—about 15 minutes from mixing to baking, 30 minutes to cool—then filled with jam, dipped in melted chocolate, and coated in sprinkles.
The recipe calls for piping the dough into 1/2-inch-wide, 1 3/4-to-2-inch-long segments using a French star tip or a snipped plastic bag. After baking for 11 to 13 minutes, the cookies are cooled, sandwiched with jam, dipped in chocolate, and rolled in sprinkles. They keep at room temperature in an airtight container for a week. Perelman noted that her "assistants are shorter and cuter" now—likely her children—and equally unlikely to miss Cookie Day.
Ingredients and Directions
Ingredients: 1 cup (8 ounces or 225 grams) unsalted butter, softened; 2/3 cup (135 grams) granulated sugar; 2 large egg yolks; 1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract; 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt; 2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour; 1/2 cup (160 grams) jam of your choice; 1 cup sprinkles, chopped nuts, or finely shredded dried coconut; 10-to-12-ounce (285-to-340-gram) bag semisweet chocolate chips or chopped chocolate.
Directions: Combine butter and sugar until light. Add egg yolks, vanilla, and salt; beat to combine. Scrape bowl. Add flour; mix just until it disappears. Fit a piping bag with a medium (about 1/2-inch opening) French star tip, or use a large plastic bag with corner snipped. Pipe dough into 1/2-inch-wide, 1 3/4-to-2-inch-long segments, spaced 1 inch apart, on baking sheets. Snip dough with knife or scissors for a clean finish. Bake 11 to 13 minutes, until golden at edges. Cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough. For assembly, place jam in a sandwich bag; snip corner when ready. Place sprinkles in shallow bowls. Melt chocolate chips until three-quarters melted, then stir to melt rest. Dip each sandwich a third to half into chocolate, let drip, roll in sprinkles, and set on parchment. Freeze 5 minutes to hasten setting if desired. Store in airtight container at room temperature for a week. Makes 36 cookie sandwiches. Total time: 60 minutes.
Editorial Notes