Pink Peppercorn & Almond Shortbread Hearts with Chestnut Cream

These are pretty speckled butter cookie sandwiches which look lovely and freeze beautifully! The pink pepper mitigates the sweetness of the chestnut cream looks really pretty and tastes quite adult.

The variations for the cookie itself are endless, for example they can be cut in any shape you want, the peppercorns can be left out and/or replaced with culinary lavender, orange or lemon peel or eaten without sandwiching at all, left plain and tasting sweet and buttery all on their own. They can be filled with different variations on the cream*. or insteadof the cream, made with a favorite jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar for linzer cookies or dipped in chocolate.
They are beautiful, easy and delicious.

For the cookies:
-3/4 pound room temp unsalted butter
-1 cup extra-fine sugar
-1-2 tsp pure vanilla extract
-3 cups all-purpose flour
-1/2 cup finely ground almond meal (Bob's Red Mill is great)
-1/4 teaspoon sea salt
-1 Tbs pink peppercorns, crushed with mortar and pestle.

(You'll also need extra flour for rolling out and extra-fine sugar for sprinkling!)

For the cream:
-1/2 pint of cold heavy cream
-small can (17.5 oz) of Clément Faugier Chestnut spread with Vanilla aka Créme de Marrons de L'Ardéche (available at specialty grocers such as Dean & Deluca, Kayustans or on-line.

For the cookie:
Preheat oven to 350F.
In a medium bowl sift flour and salt together. Add almond meal and crushed pink peppercorns until combined.
In a larger bowl, use a mixer to cream together butter and sugar. When just combined add vanilla.

Slowly add the dry ingredients, the flour/salt/peppercorn mixture to the creamed butter and sugar until they come together. Gather gently in a ball, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 20-30 minutes.

When ready to make, roll out dough on a floured board to about 1/4" thick. Cut out hearts or stars (I use small cutters rather than large since the cookies are rich) in pairs and transfer to cookie sheets lined with parchment. Sprinkle cookies before baking with extra-fine sugar.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until light golden. Let cookies cool on racks.

The Cream:
While the cookies are baking make the cream.
In a chilled bowl, take your chilled heavy cream and whip on medium speed until soft peaks form, like a whipped cream.
In another small bowl, spoon half your whipped cream and fold in room temp chestnut spread until thick and the consistency of soft butter. Add more cream as you go until you get the consistency that feels right.

When cookies are done, pair up the hearts or stars and with a small spoon add a little dollop of cream onto the back-side (the side that was touching the pan) of one. Put the sandwich together so that the "good" side of each cookie faces out.
Voila! Chestnut cream cookies!

Can be refrigerated or frozen for up to ten days.

*If finding the French chestnut cream is impossible, you can infuse the heavy cream here with: culinary lavender, or vanilla bean or almond extract overnight and after cream is whipped add 1/4 c. fine sugar. Or instead you could also add either or a tsp of orange flower water or rose water for a different flavor for the cream. In these cases I would leave the peppercorns out and either leave dough plain.

Deborah Stein
Bonbon Oiseau Workshop