These espresso chai sandwich cookies are buttery, melt in your mouth, shortbread cookies frosted with a layer of chai spice buttercream sandwiched in between strong espresso flavoured cookies. They will truly dazzle at your next holiday celebration! These cookies are delicate, buttery, crisp, and perfect for Christmas celebrations! They are fun to make and delicious to eat. They require only a few ingredients and will be ready in just 10 minutes. If you’re looking to bake something festive in a short span of time, this is the recipe you need. These Christmas cookies are perfect for almost any occasion to celebrate with friends, family and loved ones during the Holidays!
Ingredients you’ll need:
- Unsalted Butter: Since butter is a main flavor here, I would really recommend springing for a higher-quality brand. It is very important to have your butter at room temperature. You can ensure this by lightly pressing your finger on the block of butter. It should slightly leave an imprint. I also prefer to use unsalted butter because salted butters have varying amounts of salt content in them and it is always a good idea to add it on your own and avoid your bakes from being too salty.
- Granulated Sugar: Sugar acts as a binding agent to your muffins along with adding sweetness. You can use either granulated sugar, powdered sugar or caster sugar to make these cookies. Make sure you only use superfine sugar to get that melt in your mouth texture.
- Almond Extract: You must use a high quality pure almond extract in your recipes. This helps to add a rich flavor to your baked goods especially when they contain chocolate. This enhances the flavour of all ingredients and you should never leave it out. You can alternatively swap it with vanilla extract. Pure vanilla extracts are typically dark brown in color.
- Espresso: You will need freshly brewed espresso to make these shortbread cookies. If you’re in a pinch you can replace this with equal amounts of strong coffee.
- All purpose flour: I highly recommend weighing all your ingredients using a kitchen scale for accurate recipe results. If you’re using cups, don’t scoop your cup into the flour. Spoon the flour into your cup and level it off with the back of a knife. You can also use a mix of all purpose and hazelnut flour alternatively.
- Kosher Salt: Adding a pinch of salt helps to balance out the flavours in the cookies. I have added sea salt for a little extra flavour however you can use normal iodised salt too.
- Ground ginger: You will need ground ginger to add to the chai spice buttercream. Spices help to add a warm flavour to baked goods making them perfect for the cozy weather.
- Ground cinnamon: You will need ground cinnamon to add to the chai spice buttercream. Spices help to add a warm flavour to baked goods making them perfect for the cozy weather.
- Ground nutmeg: A small amount of nutmeg along with cinnamon helps to bring out its flavours even more and add depth to them. I don’t recommend leaving this out.
- Ground cardamom: A pinch of ground cardamom helps to enhance the flavour of all these spices and goes very well in these cookies.
- Ground cloves: A pinch of ground cloves helps to enhance the flavour of all these spices and goes very well in these cookies.
- All spice powder: You will need all-spice powder to add to the chai spice buttercream. Spices help to add a warm flavour to baked goods making them perfect for the cozy weather.
- Powdered Sugar: You will need powdered of confectioners’ sugar to add to your buttercream. It mixes in like a breeze and leaves no grainy lumps at all!
- Heavy Cream: You will need high-fat heavy cream or heavy whipping cream to make a smooth and silky buttercream. If you’re using low-fat cream, make sure to drain out the water content from it before starting.
FAQ
1. Whisk together all the dry ingredients and wet ingredients to make the shortbread cookie dough using a hand mixer, stand mixer or a food processor.
2. Chill it in the fridge for at least one hour or up to a few days.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out one disk of dough to ⅛” in thickness. Use a round cookie cutter to cut 3 inch cookies from the rolled dough.
4. Place all cutout cookie dough on baking sheets. Place the scrap cookie dough back in the fridge for about 15 minutes before re-rolling.
5. Bake cookies at 350 degrees F for about 10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool completely on the baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining cookie dough.
6. In a small bowl, cream together butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the chai spice. Set aside.
7. Pipe the buttercream onto the back of half of the cookies as desired. Place another cookie on top of the buttercream cookie.
8. Chill the cookies until the buttercream is set. Enjoy!
Store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for upto a week or at room temperature for upto 3 days.
You can double or half this recipe as per your needs. However I have to warn you, these cookies are really so addictive that you’ll finish a batch in no time.
Tips to make the best chai espresso cookies:
- Do not over mix the dough. Because we do not want to incorporate much air into the dough, be sure to mix the butter and sugars together on low speed. Mixing at a higher speed for too long will aerate the dough and leave you with cookies that spread too much in the oven.
- Roll the dough before chilling. For best results I like to roll the dough as soon as it’s ready. Roll the dough to 3/8 inch thick between two pieces of parchment paper and then pop it in the freezer for at least 15 minutes before cutting the shapes. Once the shapes are cut, place the cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet and return them to the freezer for 10 minutes before baking them in a preheated oven. The extra chill time will help to prevent any spreading in the oven.
- Do not over bake. For those soft, buttery, melt in your mouth cookies be sure to pull them from the oven when the edges are set and lightly golden brown and the center of the cookie is puffed and pale. The middle of the cookies might seem slightly under baked but the residual heat from the pan will continue to bake the cookies once they are removed from the oven.
- Cool the cookies completely. Be sure to let the cookies cool for 10 minutes on the cookie sheets once removed from the oven. Then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Do not hold back on the spices. I know, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and adding along some ginger, nutmeg and all-spice might sound a lot at first and leave you holding back from adding them. I get it that you’re sceptical. All these spices blend together to form what is famously known as chai spice. Trust me friends, they blend in so well in these muffins and give them the perfectly cozy flavours you’re looking for!
HOW TO GET THE BEST RESULTS FROM THIS RECIPE?
All of the recipes on the blog are thoroughly tested multiple times and carefully designed so that anyone can reproduce these delicious baked good in their own kitchen and enjoy them to the fullest. The only way to make this possible is when anyone can exactly replicate the measurements and temperatures.
- In order to standardise the way ingredients are measured, I highly recommend that you weigh them in grams. Volume measurements are nearly not as accurate and have a lot of scope for errors. To precisely be able to replicate the recipes, all you will need is a kitchen scale!
- Every oven heats up differently. Your oven might be over heating or under heating by around 50 degrees or more and you might not even know. In order to ensure that you are baking at the right temperatures, I highly recommend investing in an oven thermometer!
If you would still like to bake using volume measurements, I mentioned those below. However, I primarily test my recipes in grams and cannot promise the best results if you do so. Trust me, once you’ll start using these tools you’d never want to go back!
I hope you’ll enjoy these easy Espresso Chai Sandwich Cookies this Christmas and don’t forget to bookmark this sugar cookies recipe for the holidays. These cute cookies are my favorite and perfect to celebrate any occasion with friends and family!
Happy Christmas baking! x
PrintEspresso Chai Sandwich Cookies
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 32 sandwich cookies 1x
Description
These espresso chai sandwich cookies are buttery, melt in your mouth, shortbread cookies frosted with a layer of chai spice buttercream sandwiched in between strong espresso flavoured cookies. They will truly dazzle at your next holiday celebration!
Ingredients
SHORTBREAD COOKIES
- 310g (2½ cups) all purpose flour, spooned and levelled
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 227g (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 100g (½ cup) granulated or caster sugar
- 2 tablespoon espresso powder dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling hot water
- 1 teaspoon pure almond or vanilla extract
CHAI BUTTERCREAM
- 170g (¾ cup) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 410g (3½ cups) powdered sugar, sifted
- 60ml (¼ cup) heavy cream, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° F and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream the butter and granulated sugar until the mixture is fluffy and pale yellow. Add in the freshly brewed espresso and almond extract. Then, add the flour a cup at a time, until you have a crumbly dough that’s starting to come together.
- Turn the dough onto a pastry or cutting board. Press the dough together with clean hands until you have a smooth ball of dough. Cut the dough into two, and flatten each portion into a 1/2” disc. Wrap with plastic wrap, and freeze for about 15 minutes or refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll each disc of dough until it’s 1/4” thick. Cut out an even number of 3” fluted cookies with a cookie cutter.
- Place the cookies 1” apart on the prepared sheets, and bake for 10-11 minutes, until the bottoms and edges are lightly browned. Let cool for about 5 minutes on the pan, and then move the cookies to a wire rack to completely cool.
- Beat softened butter on medium speed for about 3-4 minutes until completely smooth and creamy. Add the confectioners’ sugar, cream, vanilla extract, and salt with the mixer running. Increase to high speed and beat for 1 minute.
- Add the chai spice and beat until thick and creamy, about 2 full minutes. Add more confectioners’ sugar if frosting is too thin or looks too wet. And then add more salt to offset added sweetness.
- Pipe the buttercream onto the back side of half the shortbread cookies as desired. Top the buttercream cookies with another shortbread cookies to form a cookie sandwich. Enjoy!
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Category: Christmas cookies, sandwich cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: chai espresso sandwich cookies, espresso chai sandwich cookies, chai latte cookies, espresso chai cookies
Leave a Reply