Stamped Cookies #12 - Red Velvet Springerle Cookies

Red Velvet Springerle Cookies (stamped cookies #12) - made dough November 11, 2021 from Springerle Joy

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 egg

1-2 tablespoons LorAnn Red Velvet emulsion (I used 1 tablespoon)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1/4 cup chocolate chips, melted

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon dry buttermilk

1 teaspoon salt

Cream Cheese Filling

8 ounces full-fat cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup butter, slightly softened

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

heavy cream, as needed, to thin filling if desired

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and powdered sugar until no butter lumps remained. Add egg and mix to combine. Mix in red velvet emulsion, vanilla, cocoa powder and melted chocolate.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, dry buttermilk powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix until dough pulls away from paddle and begins to form a ball.
3. Dust the surface of your counter and rolling pin with flour and roll out the dough to a thickness of approximately 3/8" to 1/2". If your dough is too soft, refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.
4. Dust the surface of your dough and your cookie mold with flour. Press the mold into the dough just far down enough to fill the mold cavity. Remove your mold and cut out the cookie. Gently brush off the excess flour on top of your cookie. 
5. Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Chill for at least 30 minutes in the fridge or freezer.
6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake chilled cookies for 7-9 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheet for several minutes before transferring cookies to wire rack. Cool completely before filling.
7. Cream Cheese Filling: In a large mixing bowl fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the cream cheese and butter until combined. Beat in vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar. Mix until just combined. Add a dash of cream if needed or until desired consistency is reached.

It’s December 1! If you haven’t fired up your holiday baking yet, here’s a great recipe to start with. This is another post where I'm going to rhapsodize not only about embossed rolling pins and stamped cookies but also about recipes that keep the impressions after baking. 

Above are the pictures of the cookies before baking. Below is after baking. Pretty good, right?

This recipe does require a couple of ingredients you might not have readily available in your pantry so you may need to plan ahead. I had to buy the LorAnn red velvet emulsion and the buttermilk powder on amazon. Normally my grocery stores at least carry the buttermilk powder but not this time. 

It was worth it to get these pretty cookies that also tasted good. I preferred the designs on my embossed rolling pin with the flowers rather than the stars. I think I'll keep the stars rolling pin for vanilla dough instead. 

This dough was easy to work with. I did chill it but not too long as it was already stiff when I first mixed it and not really sticky. If you're using an embossed rolling pin as opposed to a cookie stamp, you want to roll the dough with a plain rolling pin to a thickness thicker than you want the end cookie to be. The reason is when you roll out with the embossed rolling pin, the dough will flatten further with the embossed rolling.

If you're making these as cookie sandwiches like I did, you don't want to make them too thick or the cookie sandwich will be too unwieldly to eat. I could've made mine a little thinner but they still turned out fine.

When making cookies with an embossed rolling pin, rather than reroll the scraps, I push them into cookie molds instead to get different looking cookies and to avoid overhandling the dough by rolling it again.

I didn't fill the center of these since I was mailing them in care packages but if you're serving these kinds of cookies. I would fill with a cream cheese or Nutella filling. Let the holiday baking begin/continue.