Chocolate Football Sandwich Cookies

**NOTE 11-8-19**

Our new streamlined website is finally up! Get creative this Holiday Season with our 28 unique sets of Cookie Press Disks & the new Impress! Cookie Press. Learn with our recipe tutorials & decorating blog, with expert advice & troubleshooting tips. The press & all of our disk sets are ready for purchase now! Happy Baking! ~Susie the Disk Designer www.impressbakeware.com

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Original October 13, 2016 Post:

Game time! Shake up your game time snacking with these oh-so-chocolaty stuffed cookies. These little bite sized footballs with a heavenly texture will be the real winner of your next game day get together.

If you want a less decadent treat these are wonderful without turning them into sandwich cookies. Simply bake them up and decorate with icing as shown below. If you want a truly fabulous chocolate experience, however, the extra time is well worth it.

To make these you’ll need the ingredients below, a cookie press, and our football disk from the Sports Disk Set. This disk is wonderfully easy to press with.

(*NOTE: As of our 2019 Re-Opening our new disks are made of a solid white material, but the designs are exactly the same, and press identically.)

For those who read my Chocolate Halloween post, this is the same base recipe that I used there, with varied advice on pressing this shape and the recipe for the filling.

Rich Chocolate Spritz

Cookie ingredients

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened (not melted)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup honey

1 & ½ Tablespoons vanilla extract

1 egg

3 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

White icing for decorating (from a tube is fine, or use your favorite royal icing recipe)

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Cream the butter well. Oh, boy, if you’re a regular reader you’ll know I say this in every post: cream that butter well! The secret to fantastic spritz cookies is well-creamed butter. Pretend you’re making frosting. Whip it. Make it light and fluffy, and do it again after adding the sugar.

Add the honey, then the vanilla and egg and beat well. In other words, cream it again.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, combine the flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.

Add it slowly to the butter mixture, just until the flour is mixed in. DO NOT over-mix!

Let this dough sit for five to ten minutes before using. The cocoa is still absorbing liquid, and the dough will become drier, less sticky, easier to handle, and more pressable as you go. Keep an eye on it if it’s very warm in your kitchen. Warm dough becomes hard and is never very pressable.

Pack the dough into the press barrel using the back of a spoon, removing air pockets as you go. This soft dough often makes the first few cookies a bit misshaped, so go ahead and throw them back in the bowl if needed. Once pressure builds in the barrel and the shapes are coming out nicely, press the cookies keeping an even rhythm.

With this soft chocolate dough, ridges may form along the “seam” in the center of the football shape. Use a fingertip and tap lightly from one end to the other to flatten the little ridges. Slightly dampen your fingertip if needed to avoid sticking.

Bake for 6 to 9 minutes, checking early as all ovens are different. For a tender melt-in-your-mouth texture, try not to over-bake them.

To prevent breaking, let them cool on the cookie sheet for about two minutes before removing to a wire cooling rack.

Decorating these is very simple. Use a writing type (round) decorating tip to pipe icing on as shown. Setting the cookies on the cooling grid lets the excess icing hang over the edge. Just break off the ends with a toothpick.

If you are making the sandwich cookie version of this recipe, count out half of the cookies to be decorated and leave the other half plain, as they will be the upside-down bottoms of the sandwiches.

Now make the filling. Try not to eat it all as you go!

Filling ingredients

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 cup plus 3 Tablespoons powdered sugar

4 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder

Cream the butter by hand, just until it is smooth. Add the powdered sugar and cocoa powder and keep stirring until completely blended.

Now pair cookies up by size. You want similar sized cookies to match and fit well to make the sandwiches.

And if by chance you photograph your cookies? Try to keep them straight. Apparently I failed at that today. No one’s perfect. Lessons in keeping your sense of humor when baking, blogging, or in any part of life! Always sage advice.

Now turn the plain bottom-side cookie over and smooth the filling on evenly, as thick as you like. There’s no right or wrong here. Then gently press the decorated cookie on top.