Spelt Ginger Cookies with Lemon Cream Cheese Filling
Servings: 12 cookie sandwiches
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 180g (¾ cup + 1 tbsp) butter (softened)
- 120g (½ cup + 2 tbsp) white sugar
- 65g ¼ cup + 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 egg (medium)
- 60ml (¼ cup) dark syrup (see note 1)
- 240g (2 cups) spelt flour (see note 2)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cloves
Filling (see note 3):
- 55g (¼ cup) cream cheese
- 55g (¼ cup) butter (softened)
- 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 100-200g (½ - 1 cup) icing sugar (as much as needed)
Instructions
Cookies:
- Pre-heat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Line two large trays with baking paper.
- Beat the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the egg.
- Add the syrup and stir until combined.
- In a separate bowl mix the remaining dry ingredients together.
- Add to the wet ingredients and work until everything is combined, and a very sticky dough is formed.
- Using either a spoon or your hands, scoop up balls of dough (the dough is supposed to be sticky, so if using your hands, you won't be able to form a perfect ball). I made both large (1½ tablespoons of dough) and smaller cookies to experiment, so how big you would like them is up to you (baking times will need to be adjusted accordingly though).
- Drop the cookie mixture on to the prepared trays with tons of space in between (they are prolific spreaders).
- Bake from between 10-13 minutes depending on their size. The cookies puff up a little, but drop back down to make fairly flat cookies.
- Allow cookies to cool for a while before transferring to a wire rack. Let them cool completely before filling.
Filling:
- For the filling, follow the instructions for my carrot cake.
Assembly:
- Take two cookies of similar size and turn one upside down so the flattest part is facing you.
- Pipe or spread the frosting over and then place the other cookie on top.
- Sprinkle with a little icing sugar and enjoy!
Notes
I have converted grams to cups/ounces/tablespoons using online converters. Although I have no reason to believe they are inaccurate, please be aware that I have not made this recipe with imperial measurements.
- You can use molasses, treacle or dark syrup.
- You can use all-purpose (plain) flour in place of the spelt. Just use the same measurements.
- These are estimated measurements - the filling I used was leftover from my carrot cake and so the amount required is just an estimate.
