Chocolate filled shortbread cookies

Shortbread cookies are very simple to make and can be easily flavored with chocolate or fruit jams. They do taste delicious without adding any of those flavors, but since it is not a very sweet cookie, I prefer some kind of filling to sweeten it up a little. I found a wonderful recipe for a chocolate filled shortbread in the book Crazy for Chocolate, which I’ve modified a little.


Ingredients:

Shortbread

125g (4oz) butter, chopped

1/2 cup icing sugar

1 cup of all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup cornflour

1 tablespoon iced water

Filling

60g (2 oz) dark chocolate

60 g (2 oz) cream cheese

1 egg, lightly beaten

1. Preheat oven to 350^oF. Grease a baking tray. Combine flour, baking powder, salt.

2. Beat butter and icing sugar until creamy. Add flour mixture and water. Process for few seconds until mixture comes together. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

3. For the filling, melt dark chocolate. Beat cream cheese until soft, add cooled melted chocolate and half of the beaten egg, and mix well.

4. Roll out the shortbread mixture between two sheets of aluminum foil to about 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out rounds with a cookie cutter. If you don’t have anything round to cut with, just cut out squares with a knife.

5. Place half the rounds on the prepared tray. Place 1/2 teaspoon of the filling in the centre of the rounds, brush edges with remaining beaten egg and place the remaining rounds over the filling. Press edges lightly to seal.

6. Bake 10-15 minutes or until golden. Transfer to wire rack. Dust warm cookies with powdered sugar, or a mixture of powdered sugar and cocoa….or just use Nesquik like I did :-)

Enjoy the cookies with a hot cup of tea or coffee.

~Gayatri