4th of July Cream Wafers

. Happy 4th of July, my lovely readers!

I'm sending this post from Silverthorne, Colorado.  Yes, the boyfriend and I [AND the puppies!] are traveling yet again!  The boyfriends parents have a house out here and so his family [and I] made the trip out to spend the 4th of July weekend in the mountains!  So far we've had beautiful weather, taken the puppies on a fun hike through the woods, and done quite a bit of shopping.

We left on Thursday night after work for the nine hour road trip to Silverthorne.  Man, nine hours?  I hear ya!  But fortunately, we stopped in Nowhere, Nebraska [yes, that's a city...Just kidding, it's not] for the night and then finished the trip off Friday morning.  The puppies were thoroughly bored but we managed to make the trip without any hitches.  Well, kind of.

Before our trip, I wanted to make a little treat to bring for the weekend.  So I decided on Cream Wafers and bought a simple glass pitcher that I could throw the cookies in (always need some cute packaging, right?!).  Since the cookies were a little delicate, I put the cookies in tupperware and wrapped it up with Press 'N' Seal' for the trip.  Mistake #1.  I then opted to place the cookies by my feet in the car for safe keeping.  I didn't want to chance any meltage or the tupperware flying around in the trunk.  Mistake #2.  During our trip, we of course had to make a couple pit stops.  So after a quick run in to a gas station to grab a drink, I came out to the left-alone puppies.  Mistake #3.  "Okay, brace yourself" were the exact words the boyfriend uttered to me upon my return to the car.  And you can probably guess what happened.  Ollie and Tilly [Graham would never do this because he knows it would upset mommy] ate an entire carton of my Cream Wafers.  There was a gigantic hole in the Press 'N' Seal and not a crumb left.  Additional evidence?  Red frosting all over Ollie's lips.

After a couple deep, deep breaths, I wasn't TOO upset.  But needless to say we arrived to the house with only six cookies from the tupperware that the puppies didn't manage to bust in to. But  I will tell you that the [very] few we had left were eaten and enjoyed by everyone!

With that said, I'm leaving you with the fun, festive 4th of July goodie that should have made a grand appearance this weekend.  "Here they come to save the daaaaaay!"  These Cream Wafers are uber simple, tasty, and just plain cute.  I will admit that the dough was a little testy, but the results were more than worth it.  After a quick little bake in the oven, you end up with a buttery cookie that literally melts in your mouth.  Melts. In. Your. Mouth. And since these cookies are made on the smaller side, we're going to go ahead and slap two of them together with a simple, simple creamy vanilla filling.  Cookie sandwiches!  And to get the fireworks going for the 4th [get it?!], I added some red and blue food coloring to the filling.  Ta, da! 

Hope everyone has a safe and fabulous 4th of July weekend!  See you all next week! .

Cream Wafers

From Betty Crocker's Cookie Book

Ingredients:

Cookie:

2 c. all purpose flour

1 c. butter, softened

1/3 c. heavy whipping cream

Sugar

Filling:

3/4 c. powdered sugar

1/4 c. butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Red and Blue Food Coloring

Directions:

1.  For the cookie, in medium bowl combine flour, butter, and heavy whipping cream with spoon.  Cover and refrigerate 1 hour or until firm.

2.  Heat oven to 375°F.  Roll 1/3 of dough at a time until 1/8-inch thick on lightly floured surface (keep remaining dough refrigerated until ready to use).  Cut into desired shapes with a 1-1/2-inch cookie cutter.

3.  Cover large piece of waxed paper with generous amount of sugar.

4.  Transfer cutouts to waxed paper, using flat spatula, turning each cutout to coat sides with sugar.  Place on ungreased baking sheets.  Prick each cutout with fork four times.

5.  Bake 7 to 9 minutes or until set but not browned.  Remove from oven and let cool a couple minutes.  Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

6.  Meanwhile, mix all filling ingredients until smooth.

6.  Divide the filling into three separate bowls.  Add red food coloring to one bowl and blue food coloring to second bowl until desired color.

7.  Spread about 1/2 teaspoon of filling onto cookie and top with second cookie.  Repeat with remaining filling and cookies.

Yield: 4 dozen cookie sandwiches

*My Notes:

• This time around, I used a bit larger cookie cutter, so I only got about 2-1/2 dozen cookie sandwiches out of the recipe.  However, you can make them smaller [or larger], depending on the number of people you'll be serving.
• If you're wanting to adapt this recipe to certain holidays, you can always switch up the filling color.  Also, feel free to subsitute the vanilla extract for any other flavoring, such as peppermint for Christmas.  Have fun with it, the variations are the fun thing about baking!