Coconut Cream Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

For more photos with instructions, click here.

½ cup soft butter
½ cup butter flavor Crisco
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 XL eggs
1  teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup cocoa (I mix regular Hershey’s with dark)
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream butter, Crisco and sugars with an electric mixer on medium high for 1 minute or until fluffy. Hand stir in eggs and vanilla; don’t overmix. Add dry ingredients all at once and mix until fully incorporated. Add an additional 2 Tablespoons of flour for high elevation. Scoop out approximately 30 1.5” balls of dough.  Gently roll into a ball. For a richer flavor and smoother texture, form cookie dough balls, flatten slightly, and refrigerate or freeze until ready to bake. Place on greased or parchment paper on an aluminum cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 9 min. Let cool.

To make a sandwich cookie, dip half of all cookies into melted chocolate almond bark, or 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips melted with 2 Tablespoons Crisco or coconut oil.

Immediately sprinkle with toasted coconut. Do one at a time to make sure coconut sticks before chocolate sets. Make Coconut Cream Frosting while chocolate sets.

Coconut Cream Frosting
8 oz. softened cream cheese
¼ cup soft butter
¼ cup cream of coconut (Coco Lopez brand works great)
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon coconut extract
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar

Mix cream cheese, butter and cream of coconut until smooth. Add vanilla, coconut extract, and powdered sugar. Mix until fluffy. Spoon into quart size freezer strength Ziploc until ready to use.

Bottom cookies are not dipped.  Cut a ¼ inch hole into bottom corner of Ziploc bag of frosting. Pipe frosting onto bottom of ½ of all cookies. Place dipped cookie on top. Let set. Share!