Swedish Cream Cookies

Swedish Cream Cookies All Colorful and Happy

A few red and green sprinkles make these ones Christmasy.

Simple and delicious. Mmmmmmmm. Swedish cream cookies are basically smooth, creamy frosting sandwiched between two tender pie crust circles.  They're not really much to look at, but the flavors and textures are just one of those combinations that make your mouth happy. 
I originally got the recipe for these from my good friend Karla.  Her recipe had no salt, but I definitely tasted salt in this cookie.  She insisted she added no salt, which we finally discovered was true, but she had used self-rising flour.  Since I liked Karla's version better than the no salt & no leavening original recipe, I've added a little bit of salt and baking powder to this recipe.  I think it makes for a more tender melt-in-your-mouth kind of experience, and who doesn't want THAT?
Believe it or not, these cookies are a favorite for several of my friends, but beware: you can't stop eating them once you've started.  You've been warned.

Note: You can  just use one or the other of the extracts. If you do, use 1 tsp vanilla OR 1 tsp almond. You can also make the frosting vanilla bean flavor by following the instructions at the end of this post.*

SWEDISH CREAM COOKIES

INGREDIENTS
Cookie:

• 1 cup salted butter
• 2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup cream
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar + 1/4 cup all-purpose flour (for dusting)

Frosting:

• ½ cup salted butter
• 1 ¼ cups powdered sugar
• 1 ½ tablespoon cream
• ½ tsp vanilla extract
• ½ tsp almond extract
• food coloring, if desired

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Mix flour, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl.  Cut 1 cup of the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the cream and form the dough into a ball. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (Note: I do all of the mixing in my Kitchen Aid with the paddle attachment, and they turn out fine.  The original recipe calls for the cutting in of the butter.)
2. Preheat oven to 375°F.
3. Dust a cutting board with the sugar/flour mixture.  Roll dough out a third of the dough at a time to 1/8-inch thick and cut with a 1 1/2” circle cutter.  Place circles on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Prick cookies three times with a fork, or gently just stamp (don't cut) with a shaped cookie cutter.
4. Bake at 375°F for 8-11 minutes until lightly browned on the edges. Let cookies cool before frosting.
5. Beat ½ cup butter until fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and beat until creamy. Beat in the vanilla and the 1 ½ T cream. Adjust cream and powdered sugar until frosting gets to a nice spreading consistency. Add food coloring, if desired. Scoop frosting into a sandwich or quart size zip top bag, and cut about a ¼ inch tip off.
6. Squeeze some frosting onto the bottoms of half of the cookies and place the remaining cookies on top to make sandwich cookies.
Makes about 30 cookies.

Vanilla Bean Swedish Cream Cookies*

*For the vanilla bean frosting, warm two tablespoons cream with the vanilla bean seeds scraped from a two-inch segment of a whole vanilla bean.  Whisk to disperse vanilla bean seeds.  Pour into a small bowl/cup, cover, and refrigerate.  Use this vanilla bean cream in place of the heavy cream, almond extract, and vanilla extract.  I pour off about a half a tablespoon into another container and use the remaining vanilla bean cream in the frosting, making sure to scrape all of the vanilla bean goodness into the butter/powdered sugar mixture.  If I need more liquid in the frosting, I add what I poured off into another container.

These cookies won a blue ribbon at the 2008 Iowa 

State Fair Midwest Living Cookie Competition in the Frosted Cookie-Other Than Named class.

I think part of the fun is all the different color combinations.