As I mentioned yesterday, I have the better part of a bottle of Irish Cream in my refrigerator, left over from Kevin's birthday cake. What a great excuse to use it -- IMBB?VIII: "Lift Your Spirits High!" This month's edition is hosted by Donna of "There's a Chef in my Kitchen." Entries must "use wine or spirits as a central component of your recipe!"I set out on a search...
Most of the results that turned up were recipes to actually make my own Irish Cream. That sounded like fun, but I didn't really need any -- I just needed ways to use it! I finally ran across cooksrecipes.com, which is pretty much just what it sounds like -- "a premier internet cooking and recipe site featuring 15,000 recipes and growing." I'm not thrilled with the site's overabundance of on-page ads and popups, but it does have more recipes featuring Irish Cream than any other site I've found. It has, of course, lots of recipes for cakes, but that's not what I wanted. I've already done that! Finally, this recipe jumped out at me...
Irish Cream Sandwiches
Cookie Ingredients:
3/4 cup LAND O LAKES® Butter, softened*
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
Filling Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup LAND O LAKES® Butter, softened*
2 to 3 teaspoons Irish cream liqueur**
Topping Ingredients:
Powdered sugar, if desired
1. Combine 3/4 cup butter and sugar in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add egg and vanilla; continue beating until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour, cocoa and salt. Beat until well mixed.
2. Divide dough in half; shape each half on lightly floured surface into 8-inch long square log with 1 1/2-inch sides. Wrap in plastic food wrap; refrigerate until firm (2 hours or overnight).
3. Heat oven to 325°F. Cut logs into 1/4-inch square slices with sharp, serrated knife. Place squares 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until set.
4. Combine powdered sugar and 1/4 cup butter in small bowl. Beat at low speed, adding enough liqueur for desired spreading consistency. Spread about 1 teaspoon filling on cookie, top with second cookie. Press together gently. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired.
Makes 32 sandwich cookies.
*Substitute LAND O LAKES® Soft Baking Butter with Canola Oil right from the refrigerator.
**Substitute 2 to 3 teaspoons very strong brewed coffee.
TIP: Make sure not to slice the cookie dough too thick or the cookies will not be crisp.
Make Ahead: Prepare cookies as directed; cool completely. Freeze in airtight container up to 1 month. When ready to use, thaw cookies completely. Prepare filling and assemble cookie sandwiches as directed.
Boy, do I need a purple stand mixer! I nearly burned out the motor on my mom's hand mixer (sorry, mom -- I'll bring you some cookies tomorrow... and don't worry -- the mixer really is fine). This is one stiff cookie dough.
I pretty much followed this recipe as it's written, except I used Irish Cream in place of the vanilla in the cookies, and used more than is called for in the filling... 2 or 3 teaspoons? Please! I used almost 4 tablespoons. =) I actually needed that much "for desired spreading consistency," and I have to say it didn't hurt my feelings any. And, I made the cookies round instead of square, because I felt like it.
These cookies are just as good as you think they might be. The chocolate wafers are deep, dark, crispy, and crunchy. And I'm glad I used extra Irish Cream in the filling. I don't think it would have been a present enough flavor if I had only used a couple teaspoons. I just made the cookies yesterday, but I've already come to think of them as "grown-up Oreos."
No milk necessary! Well, I don't really like milk all that much. But I'm sure they'd go great with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, or even steamed soy milk (yum!), preferably spiked with some more Irish Cream. I honestly don't drink much, but I could really get into this stuff...
Licking the filling bowl was the best part. =)
Bonus recipe! I found this one on the same site, and couldn't resist throwing a batch together this morning...
Irish Cream Liqueur Bread
Recipe for bread machine.
1 1/4 cups water
1/3 cup honey
2 tablespoons Irish cream liqueur
1 cup quick or old fashioned oats
3 cups white bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast
1. Place ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order suggested by the manufacturer.
2. Select Sweet bread cycle and Light Crust; start machine.
Makes one 1 1/2 pound loaf.
I, of course, mixed the dough in my machine and baked the bread in the oven, at 350 for about 40 minutes. Oh, and I took out 2 tablespoons of water, and used a total of 4 tablespoons of Irish Cream.
This bread is ultra-comforting. It's soft and chewy, with just a hint of not-quite-crunch from the oats. The Irish Cream is more of an essence than a strong flavoring, but it's definitely there. It's a sweet bread that makes a mean pb&j! I can't wait to try it toasted (and topped with a little european-style butter, of course!) tomorrow morning!
And yes, these pictures are all my work -- they were not stolen from cooksrecipes.com!
Kelli September 22, 2004 05:36 PM PDT To everyone -- thanks so much for the comments. I feel so loved! =)
Aardvark -- I will certainly look into that soon. Thanks for the tips!
Jennifer -- I did forget to mention how great the bread smelled as it baked, didn't I?
Linda -- the cookies are my new addiction. They're a bit time consuming to make, but not difficult at all!
Irene? Is that you? With the cravings? =) I am a newfound Irish Cream fan. I've always liked IC flavored coffee, but never really thought about using the real thing until I found the recipe for the IC Bundt cake (see August 14th, if you haven't already). I'm so thankful for that recipe!
Name September 21, 2004 09:13 PM PDT Oh, no. You have just set off my cravings like you wouldn't believe. Anything with Irish Cream strikes my fancy - I am now obsessed with giving this a shot!
Linda September 21, 2004 07:40 PM PDT Another batch of wonderful recipes, Kelli! The Irish Cream Sandwiches, in particular, look spectacular! Great idea!
Jennifer September 21, 2004 10:20 AM PDT Those cookies look scrumptious! And the bread...man alive...that would be absolutely delicious with some creamed honey. I have a bad feeling (good feeling) I will be making this bread sometime this week...I can just imagine the smell eminating from my oven. Wow.
Aardvarknav September 21, 2004 09:29 AM PDT Rather than using a general search engine to find good recipes, I use a couple of special Google recipe search engines that are more direct and weed out a lot of the chaff. The first is not an official Google engine, but was developed at Stanford (where the Google people started). It is at http://theory.stanford.edu/~amitp/recipe.html. It normally provides the best recipe information, but in this case would have started out with recipes on how to make Irish Cream Liquers.
The second search engine is an official google site at http://www.researchbuzz.org/archives/001404.shtml. It asked for an ingredient or two and comes up with recipes. This would have been the best one to use for what you wanted.
I keep both on my toolbar so I can get to them quickly.
Donna in Harrisburg September 20, 2004 11:21 AM PDT Now there's a way to raise the mood of a recipe... quadruple the amount of liquer called for!! Way to go Kelli!
Kelli September 20, 2004 07:33 AM PDT Alice -- I'm storing the cookies in the fridge because of my "dairy paranoia --" the filling has so much butter in it! They have softened slightly since Saturday, but they still have a nice bite. Hopefully they'll stay that way. Maybe I'll take a few out and see what happens. I don't think they'll last long enough to get TOO soft, anyway! =)
Alice September 19, 2004 07:01 PM PDT Mmmm, those cookies look wonderful! Do you think they'll keep long without getting soft from the filling? Your bread looks great, too!
