I was dreaming of red, white , and blue cookies…and I saw two things that inspired me…a photo of a plate of red, white and blue star cookies & a recipe for and shortbread sandwich cookies. So how does one execute this? Good quality gel paste food coloring (amazon), white chocolate (for the center), a star shaped cookie cutter, and patience…to roll, cut and bake these.

Ingredients for the cookies:

• 2 cups (10 ounces) pastry flour (i’m a convert, this stuff works well for cookies, cakes)
• 1 cup fine almond meal
• 2/3 cup  sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (8 ounces or 2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 drops bright blue food coloring
• 2 drops bright red food coloring

♣ Equipement:

• parchment paper
• waxed paper
• star shaped cookie cutter
• baking sheets

Soften the butter (again microwave for 10  secs at a time if needed). Blend in the sugar. Add the almond meal and then slowly the flour. Don’t over mix–just want it to take shape.

Form 2 logs.

With log 1–work in the blue food coloring until well mixed. shape in a log and wrap that in waxed paper.

Log 2: Work in the red food coloring into log 3 as above…and wrap up.

Chill 2 hours or overnight. Pull out of the freezer when well set. Using the method from the gingerbread cookies, slice of 3-4 inch pieces, place between parchment, roll out to 1 inch pieces (or thinner), and cut out (if it needs to be thicker to allow the star shapes to cut out properly, do that). Reroll and cut the scraps. The round cookies you see were made when it was too hard to cut stars.

Bake it at 350 for 15-20 mins (watch the color).

cool completely

Then create the sandwiches. How you ask?

melt white chocolate in a double boiler (my substitue: a medium metal bowl on top of a small saucepan filled with water…it does boil over a bit occasionally, though).
Add almond extract &  a smidge of cinnamon to the filling.

Spread a bit of this white chocolate spread (just a bit) onto a red cookie and put a blue cookie on top. or vice versa.