Irish Car Bomb Celebration Cake

An Irish Car Bomb is fairly simple: 

1) Fill a shot glass half way with Jameson Irish Whiskey.
2) Top the shot with Bailey's Irish Cream.
3) Fill a pint glass with Guinness.
4) Drop the full shot into the pint, shot glass and all.
5) Drink with vigorous fervor until you see the bottom of the glass.
6) Bombs away.

This past weekend was full of surprises and excitement for my family.  What better way to celebrate? With Irish Car Bombs was the obvious answer (a newly growing tradition in my family) but I needed to up the ante.  Irish Car Bombs in cake form?  Why yes, of course.  Because if you can combine booze + sugar + pastry in the same package for a party, you're going to have success.  

I spent the afternoon in the kitchen recreating every part of an Irish Car Bomb into a sultry, sweet treat.  Guinness was going into both chocolate cake and chocolate sauce.  Whiskey found a new friend in salted caramel.  Bailey's saluted to it's best performance yet in the perfected whipped cream topping.  The Dream Team was forming. If you are ever looking for a fun challenge - start thinking of ways you can turn booze into desserts.  You'll be entertained for the whole afternoon.

Treat your family this holiday season with this amazing creation.  If you serve it with a real Irish Car Bomb on the side, the Irish Gods will smile upon you and you will be my hero.  Cheers to that!

Irish Car Bomb Celebration Cake

Guinness Stout Chocolate Cake:

Ingredients

1 cup Guinness stout

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

¾ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1½ teaspoons baking soda

¾ teaspoons salt

2 eggs

2/3 cup sour cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 pan with nonstick spray.

Bring the Guinness and butter to a simmer in a heavy, medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the cocoa powder and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl to combine.

Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sour cream on medium speed until combined. Add the Guinness-chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat just to combine.

Reduce the speed to low, add the flour mixture and beat briefly. Using a rubber spatula, fold the batter until completely combined. Pour batter in cake pan.

Bake until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.

Cool the cake in the pan.

Guinness Chocolate Sauce:

Ingredients

1 cup Guinness 

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions

Bring everything to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer to thicken, about 5 minutes.

Let cool and enjoy!

Salted Whiskey Caramel Sauce:

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 stick Butter (6 Tablespoons)

3/4 cup heavy cream

2-4 Tablespoons Irish whiskey (to taste)

Generous pinch of salt

Directions

Mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-low to medium heat. Cook while whisking gently for 5 to 7 minutes, until thicker. Turn off heat. Serve warm or refrigerate until cold.

If sauce is thin, just continue cooking for a few more minutes.

Bailey’s Whipped Cream:

Ingredients

1 cup cold heavy whipping cream

¼ cup powdered sugar

1-3 Tablespoons Bailey’s Irish cream

Directions

In a medium bowl, whisk heavy cream until cream just starts to thicken.  Add sugar and Bailey’s (to taste) and whisk until soft peaks form.

Serve chilled.

To Serve:

Cut squares of cake and place on a plate.  Generously drizzle both sauces over the cake and top with a dollop of whipped cream.  

Serve, swoon, celebrate.  

No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

They're chocolate.  They're peanut butter.  They're pretzels.

They're salty.  They're sweet.  They're crunchy.

They're No-Bake.  They're easy.  They're....perfect.



My Gramma turns 88 today and I made these as the dessert for my birthday lunch for her.  To sit there, sharing stories and enjoying seconds and thirds with her, you realize that you're never too old to have chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels in your dessert.


Cheers to you Gramma, and to the joys of sharing every simple & sweet morsel in life with those you love.

No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

Ingredients
Nonstick cooking spray
2 cups creamy or crunchy peanut butter, divided
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar, divided
4 cups (roughly ½-inch pieces), broken small pretzel twists or sticks, divided
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided

Directions
LINE 13 x 9-inch baking pan with foil leaving an overhang on two sides. Lightly spray foil with nonstick cooking spray.

BEAT 1 1/4 cups peanut butter and butter in large mixer bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in 1 cuppowdered sugar. Stir in remaining 1 cup powdered sugar, 3 cups pretzel pieces and 1/2 cup morsels. Press evenly into prepared baking pan. Smooth top with spatula.

MICROWAVE remaining 1 1/2 cups morsels and 3/4 cup peanut butter in medium, uncovered, microwave-safe bowl on MEDIUM-HIGH (70%) power for 45 seconds; STIR. If necessary, microwave at additional 10- to 15-second intervals, stirring just until morsels are melted. Spread chocolate layer evenly over powdered sugar mixture. Sprinkle with the remaining pretzel pieces, pressing down lightly. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or until firm. Lift from pan; peel off foil. Cut into 60 pieces. Store in covered container in refrigerator.
Or...put them in the freezer when you're done.  You wont be sorry.

Bacon Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

 Woah.  There are a lot of things going on here to absorb.  Let's list them:

1) I'm posting a recipe on OUAP.  It's been a while.  Too long, I say.  WithTwoForks has been at the forefront for a long time, and rightfully so, but it's time to give some love to Once Upon a Plate.  After all this is where it all began, you know.

2) I'm back, in the US, in my kitchen.  Reunited with all of my kitchen tools.  My knife, Spartacus, and I have been dicing onions and slicing carrots just because we can.  Dont even get me started on being with my food processor again.  It's like a family reunion, but I'm the only one talking, and the food is always delicious.

3) Can we talk about the title of this recipe alone?  There are a lot of words.  Loaded words.  Bacon. Peanut Butter.  Chocolate Chips. Cookies.  Individually, each word pings a certain part of your brain that makes it scream "Holy crap YES!"  But now, strung all together, in one cohesive title?  Describing one recipe in which they are all involved?  The world may explode.  "Exceeded Limit of Awesomeness" will read on the headlines.

But, before any armageddon, let's eat these cookies together.

It's not like I have to sell the ingredients in this cookie.  If you don't like bacon, peanut butter, chocolate chips, or cookies, I'm not sure if we should be friends anyway.  All together, these culinary mavens create a decadent sweet/salty/savory/crunch/chew symphony in your mouth that no one should shy away from.

And did I mention that the recipe is silly-easy and is in fact gluten free?  Not that that matters.  All cautions should be checked at the door anyway when taking on these cookies.

Ride that edge of should-this-be-breakfast-or-dessert.  Do not be afraid to eat bacon from a cookie vehicle.  Pour a glass of milk, strap on your seatbelt, and embrace the journey.


Now I'll leave you with the recipe and a nice shot of the Boston Skyline and the Bacon Cookies simultaneously admiring each other.



Bacon Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Note: I also sprinkled some chili powder and cracked black pepper onto my bacon strips to add some smokey/peppery sass to the cookies.  Next time I may try some cayenne/maple action.  The explorations are endless...
There's bacon in your cookies people! Go wild! The sky's the limit!

Adapted from Joy the Baker.

Ingredients 

1 cup all-natural chunky or smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
about 6 slices of bacon, cooked, cooled and diced

1/3 cup chocolate chips

In a skillet over medium high heat, fry up bacon until cooked through and let cool on paper towels until cool enough to dice. Dice up and set aside. (See Note above for additional flavor ideas)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. In a mixer combine peanut butter and sugars until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add egg and baking soda and mix for another 2 minutes. Fold in cooked bacon and chocolate chips.

Roll dough into large walnut sized balls and create a cris-cross pattern with a fork. If you’d like, roll the dough balls in granulated sugar before making the cris-cross pattern (I recommend the sugar roll). Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a baking sheet for five minutes.  Consume with mind-blown friends. 

Chocolate Loaf Cake

I really enjoy baking things in loaf form.  A loaf is compact, sliceable, unpretentious.  It can be given free of any dish or serving platter and does not need anything more than two hands to consume it.  Almost any delicious batter can be put in a loaf pan and baked off.  A humble presentation that can still be full of divine flavor...    It's the perfect package.   

I made this chocolate loaf recipe for the first time this past weekend to give to a dear friend for her birthday.  The preparation of the batter is simple and the end result is a moist, chocolatey bread (...cake) that is fantastically pleasing.  There are no bells and whistles, no frostings or decoration.  You can slice away and enjoy it with a cup of tea, or dress it up with whipped cream or ice cream and take it to the elegant level that it can still stand up to.

It's like that perfect dress (or, I guess suit or shirt if you're a guy?) that you can dress up or down, and that always seems appropriate for any occasion that comes your way.  But in this case you can eat it instead of wear it.  Your taste buds will like that part.  And so will your friends.

Happy Simple Baking!

Chocolate Loaf Cake

from one of my favorites; Smitten Kitchen

An important note from SK: Although I was thrilled with the result when I used Dutch cocoa and 1 teaspoon baking soda (in the original published recipe, 8/4/10), the cake rose and sank slightly in the baking process, a sign that the leavener was off. I retested this the next day with different levels of leavener and two different types of cocoa, in hopes to keep the cake aloft. I’ve updated the recipe below with the suggestion of Dutch cocoa, a reduced amount baking soda and the addition of baking powder. I found that the version with Dutch cocoa was darker with a more appealing chocolate flavor. But fear not: If you only have a natural or non-Dutched cocoa, you can still use it, but you’ll want to use 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and no baking powder. Here’s a photo of both versions side-by-side. Both were gleefully received.


Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (6 7/8 ounces) firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (4 ounces) granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (2 5/8 ounces) Dutch cocoa powder (see above for a natural cocoa adjustment)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter and lightly flour a 9×5x3-inch loaf pan, or spray it with a butter-flour spray. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat well, then the buttermilk and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt together right into your wet ingredients. Stir together with a spoon until well-blended but do not overmix. Scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure the ingredients are well blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in pan on a rack for about 10 to 15 minutes, at which point you can cool it the rest of the way out of the pan. Serve with whipped cream and fresh berries, if you’re feeling fancy.

Keep-Beet-A-Secret Chocolate Brownies

Wait...before we go any further, let me tell you what you're thinking;  Why? Why would you ever try to completely ruin something as decadently delicious as a chocolate brownie by putting something healthy like beets in it?  Are you mad?  If you're going to have a brownie, have a brownie.  Save the beets for your salad, you crazy, crazy woman.

I know, and I hear you.  Believe me, I had very similar thoughts when I came upon a recipe like this as to why someone would introduce something like beets to a brownie mix.  What's the point?  But then, I started thinking...

These beets are added into the brownie mix after you grate them raw.  And if you think about it, that's exactly what we do when we make, say, a carrot cake or zucchini bread.  You take a healthy vegetable, grate it up, and add it to a cake/muffin/quick bread batter to add moisture, sweetness, and texture.  So, if that's the case for carrots and zucchini (and even fruits like apple and pineapple), why can't we do the same for beets?

Determined to find out, I went to my kitchen to test it myself.  This specific recipe I tried was unique in particular because it has no refined sugar, and with two heaping cups of grated raw beets, I honestly had no idea what kind of monster was going to come out of my oven.  But, lo and behold, I tasted the first bite and it was....delicious...?

Yes!  Yes it was!  I kept chewing and tasting and confirmed that what I was eating was in fact enjoyable, flavorful, and with a tender crumb to boot!  "There are beets in my brownie," I said kept saying out loud, to remind myself of the level of discovery I had stumbled upon.

With a true - not muted - chocolate flavor coming from both the melted chocolate and cocoa powder, it paired beautifully with the earthiness and natural sweetness of the beets.  It was moist but not dense, and did not feel weighed down by either too much sugar or oil.  It was practically begging to be paired with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream to be enjoyed outside on a summer evening.

It is indeed a dessert you should at least try out during these summer months - particularly because it brings the added X-factor of a secret ingredient that you can quiz your friends about when they taste it for the first time.  You can ultimately decide if you want to tell them or not, though, since they may be too busy enjoying their decadent brownies to care anyway.

To keep-beet-a-secret or to not keep-beet-a-secret, that decision is up to you.



Keep-Beet-A-Secret Chocolate Brownies
This recipe was inspired by the Decadent Beet & Chocolate Cake recipe found on the fantastic blog Green Kitchen Stories.  Although the original recipe is for a cake, and these brownies are very cake-like, you can make these more dense by using less egg if that's your desired style of brownie.  

Ingredients

2/3 cup (100 g) sunflower oil (coconut oil or olive oil)
1/2 cup (125 ml) either maple syrup or honey or a combination
50 g dark chocolate (70%), broken into pieces
2 full cups (250g) raw beetroots, grated
3 eggs
1 ½ cup (375 ml) spelt flour, (I used a combo of rye and whole wheat pastry flour since that was in my cupboard)
2 teaspoons baking powder
5 tablespoons cacao powder
Big pinch of salt

Method

Preheat the oven to 350F. Warm the oil in a medium size sauce pan on very low heat. Add maple syrup and/or honey and chocolate and stir until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat. Pour into a mixing bowl and add the grated beets.

Whisk the eggs in a small bowl and then add them to the mixing bowl. Sift flour, baking powder, cacao powder and salt together and stir into the beet mixture. 

Grease a 9"x13" cake pan, bundt pan,  or12" circular casserole dish with oil or nonstick cooking spray. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the brownies are slightly dark and are slightly pulling away from the side of the pan.  An inserted toothpick should come out with some crumbs to ensure the brownies will be moist. 

Rock the beet!

Ms. Meg's Mint-Chocolate Cupcakes

Once Upon a Plate is pleased to announce it's first guest author; my cousin Meg!  She is a 15 year old spitfire who is not only a talented student, athlete, and kind-hearted lady, but man can she make an incredible cupcake!  Her story and recipe are below...and dont wait too long to make these, they will soon become your staple dessert-  Enjoy!

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I love cupcakes. They are definitely the most adorable and delicious kind of cake! So, when Aunt Jane invited us over for dinner in Maine, I decided to make some to bring. After thinking about lots of different flavors, I chose mint and dark chocolate because they would look pretty and taste really good together! So off to Hannaford’s we went to get cupcake materials for some minty Maine madness. 

The night before, I made the cake part of the cupcakes and left them covered overnight. They were really moist and yummy and it was interesting to use dark chocolate instead of regular chocolate. The next day was frosting day, the best part. The peppermint extract smelled bad by itself but when it got mixed in with everything else it tasted really good…so we ate tons of it while frosting the cupcakes! 

Lizzy appeared on her kayak just in time to help out with piping the frosting and making chocolate curls with a dark chocolate bar. In the end, they were a success! The frosting and the cake went really well together, and of course there is no better time to eat a cupcake than after a delicious lobster dinner on a beautiful summer night in Maine!

Mint-Chocolate Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

2 cups sugar

1 ¾  cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup Hershey’s dark chocolate cocoa

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

½ cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup boiling water

Line muffin cups with paper baking cups. Heat oven to 350º.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Fill cups 2/3 full with batter.

Bake 22-25 minutes.

Makes 30.

Mint Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks butter

4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted

¼ cup milk

1/8 teaspoon all natural peppermint extract

Beat butter until creamy, scrape bowl.

Add 4 cups of powdered sugar, the milk, and the peppermint extract. Beat until combined. 

Bread & Cookies

Sometimes I go through food streaks.  They come over me every once in a while, and there's no stopping once they've started.  I zone in on one type of food or dish, and I cant stop making it in every form it comes in.  Recently I've been on a baking streak, and I fear the end is not in sight.

On baking streaks I read every book on baking I have, fascinated by all of the complex processes that occur when heat meets batter.  I think that every recipe I pass over MUST be tried, as if there was no other alternative.  I MUST try it and I MUST bake it.  Or else I will NEVER know what it's like to make it or what it tastes like.  (!!!)  You can imagine the anguish.

My oven gets a workout and my kitchen becomes dominated by smells of browning sugars and butter.  Before I know it the counters are overflowing with full cooling wracks and dirty measuring cups.   I feel kind of like the Cat Lady...  But instead of cats and milk bowls all over my house, they're treats from the oven.  Maybe that just makes me the Crazy Food Lady?  Anyway, all I have to say is God bless the freezer.

My latest fixations have been Bread and Cookies.  I think that the smell of freshly baked bread is next to hallucinogenic, let alone eating a warm slice, and cookies... well, cookies are just delicious.  If you don't like cookies, I don't know if I can trust you.  That's all.

With these food streaks come marathons of photo shoots of the final products.  The other day I baked a loaf of bread and ended up with 75 photos on my once blank memory card.  What?  How did that happen?  I didnt know whether to be embarrassed or impressed.  Not many people could have 75 different visions of a loaf of bread.  We'll call it special.

The following are some of the recent recipes I've made with their respective photo shoots.  Enjoy, and seriously try these recipes out.  Theyre as delicious as they look.

Multigrain Molasses Bread

1 large loaf, 14 slices

Active Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 24 hours

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/multigrain_molasses_bread.html

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour, plus more as needed
• 1 1/3 cups unbleached bread flour, (see Note)
• 1 cup bran flakes cereal, crushed into fine bits (see Tip)
• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon old-fashioned rolled oats, divided
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon yellow or white cornmeal, divided
• 1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant, quick-rising or bread-machine yeast
• 1 1/2 cups ice water, (see Tip), plus more as needed
• 1/3 cup mild molasses, (not blackstrap)
• 3 tablespoons corn oil, canola oil or other flavorless vegetable oil

PREPARATION

1. Mix dough: Thoroughly stir 1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour, bread flour, bran cereal, 1/3 cup oats, 1/4 cup cornmeal, salt and yeast in a 4-quart (or larger) bowl. Thoroughly whisk ice water, molasses and oil in a medium bowl. Vigorously stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, scraping down the sides and mixing just until the dough is thoroughly blended. The dough should be moist and a bit sticky, but fairly stiff. If the mixture is too dry, stir in just enough additional ice water to facilitate mixing, but don’t overmoisten. If the dough is too wet, stir in just enough whole-wheat flour to stiffen slightly. Lightly coat the top with oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.
2. First rise: Let the dough rise at room temperature (about 70°F) for 12 to 18 hours; if convenient, stir once partway through the rise. For convenience (and improved flavor), you may refrigerate the dough for 3 to 12 hours before starting the first rise.
3. Second rise: Generously coat a 9-by-5-inch (or similar large) loaf pan with oil. Vigorously stir the dough to deflate it. If it is soft, stir in just enough whole-wheat flour to yield a firm but moist dough (it should be fairly hard to stir). Transfer the dough to the pan. Lightly coat the top with oil. Smooth and press the dough evenly into the pan using a well-oiled rubber spatula or your fingertips. Sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon each oats and cornmeal and pat down. Using well-oiled kitchen shears or a serrated knife, cut three or four 1/2-inch-deep, evenly spaced slashes diagonally in the top of the loaf. Cover the pan with plastic wrap.
4. Let rise at warm room temperature until the dough nears the plastic, 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours. (For an accelerated rise, see Tip.)
5. 15 minutes before baking: Position a rack in lower third of oven; preheat to 400°F.
6. Bake, cool, slice: Reduce oven temperature to 375°. Bake the loaf on the lower rack until the top is lightly browned, 60 to 70 minutes. Continue baking, covering with foil if necessary to prevent overbrowning, until a skewer inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs on the tip (or until an instant-read thermometer registers 204-206°), 10 to 15 minutes longer. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes. Turn the loaf out on the rack and let cool to at least warm before serving. The loaf is good warm but slices best when cool.

TIPS & NOTES

• Make Ahead Tip: Wrap airtight and keep at room temperature for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 2 months.

• Note: Milled from high-protein wheats, bread flour develops strong gluten, resulting in well-risen loaves. It helps give breads with a high percentage of whole grains better structure and a lighter texture. Find it near other flours in most supermarkets.
• Tips: The easiest way to crush bran flakes is to put them in a small sealable plastic bag, close it tightly, then press down with a rolling pin or the palm of your hand.
• To prepare “ice water” for this recipe, add a heaping cup of ice cubes to cold water and stir for about 30 seconds before measuring out the water.
• You can turn your microwave into a warm, moist environment to help accelerate the second rise of the bread dough. Begin by microwaving 1/2 cup water in a 1-cup glass measure just to boiling. Set the water in one corner of the microwave, place the pan of dough on the other side of the turned-off microwave and close the door. The dough will double in size in 45 minutes to 11/2 hours.

NUTRITION

Per serving: 163 calories; 4 g fat (0 g sat, 1 g mono); 0 mg cholesterol; 30 g carbohydrates; 4 g protein; 3 g fiber; 275 mg sodium; 207 mg potassium.

Nutrition Bonus: Iron (15% daily value).

Homemade Oreos

http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/05/my-kingdom-for-a-glass-of-milk/

Adapted from Retro Desserts, Wayne Brachman

Let’s talk about the sugar for a minute, shall we? This is a sweet cookie. A good, sweet cookie. Yet, if you think of an actual Oreos, the wafers are fairly un-sweet and actually on the slightly salty side, which contrasts with the super-sweetness of the filling bringing harmony, happiness, yada yada. If you want your cookie closer to that original, you can take out a full half-cup of the sugar. If you want to make the cookie by itself (as I did a while back for ice cream sandwiches), go ahead and use the full amount.

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar [see recipe note]
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F.
2. In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
4. To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream. Dunk generously in a large glass of milk.