Chocolate Raspberry Sandwich Cookies

This is what I made for my sweetheart for Valentine's Day: obscenely good chocolate raspberry sandwich cookies. Seriously, the picture doesn't demonstrate how brilliant the raspberry flavor is with the chocolate. I guess you'll just have to imagine.

The recipe for the cookies is adapted from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion. The only changes I made were to add some wheat flour (as is my wont) and to add half brown sugar (mostly because I ran out of white, but the flavor compliments the chocolate, I think). The recipe for the filling is from Moosewood Restaurant New Classics. It's actually a vegan frosting for chocolate cake, but it worked wonderfully as a filling here.

Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1/4 tsp(heaping) salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
2 cups semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

- Preheat oven to 350F.
- In a large bowl, beat together the cream and sugar until well combined. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the salt and the vanilla.
- In a seperate bowl, wisk together the flour, cocoa, and baking powder. Gradually blend this mixture into the butter mixture until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Drop the dough by teaspoonful onto parchment-lined baking sheets, leaving about 1.5 inches between each. Bake for 11 to 12 minutes; they'll feel soft on top and will have spread out. Transfer to a rack to cool.
- When the cookies are completely cool, you can fill them. Instructions below.

Filling

1/3 cup raspberry jam
1 cup semisweet chocolate

- Combine jam and chocolate and melt in microwave: try 20 seconds, then stir. If chocolate is not yet completely melted, microwave again in 5 seconds increments. Don't overheat!
- Scoop about a teaspoonful of filling onto one cookie and spread with a knife or offset spatula. Top with another cookie and leave an hour or two to set. Repeat with remaining cookies.