Vegan Dark Chocolate Raspberry Shortbread Cookies

I have been all about making cute Valentine's Day treats lately. After all, it is next week already. Maybe it is just because I am a true girly girl and I love all things pink and festive and heart shaped, or just that I love things with chocolate, or berry or any of the other sweet flavors associated with Valentine's Day. The chocolates are my favorite of course, but I have been making cookies this week as well!

I made some raspberry linzer cookies earlier in the week and more recently some dark chocolate short bread ones that I am sharing with you today! I had always wanted to make this type of cookies, the ones with the jam peeking out through the window in the top cookie of a sandwich. I made the classic ones to begin with because I wanted to see if they would work out, then made the non-traditional ones for my blog and they happened to be my favorite of the two.

I made them with a dark chocolate shortbread base, so I am not calling them linzer cookies since that base has nuts and is typically vanilla. This base is super delicious though! I modeled it after a dark chocolate shortbread cookie I used to make back in the day before I went vegan that I loved and they turned out very similar!

These are a little bit time consuming to make, I am not going to lie, after all they require rolling out dough, cutting it and chilling it then the assembly with the jam and being careful with the delicate top cookies. But it is all totally worth it, and I find doing activities like this calming. Maybe it is just the artist in me that likes to spend weeks on one painting or sculpture, but doing little detailed things makes me happy sometimes. These cookies turned out super delicious by the way, the rich, buttery dark chocolate cookies the perfect pairing for the gooey sweet raspberry jam! If you are in the mood for a Valentine's Day project, give these cookies a try!

 

Vegan Dark Chocolate Raspberry Shortbread Cookies 
Makes about 16

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups organic whole wheat pastry flour*
• 1/4 cup cacao powder or unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp maple sugar
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 cup melted coconut oil
• 1/4 cup avocado oil (or other neutral oil liquid at cool temperatures)
• 1 Tbsp filtered water
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• about 1/2 cup raspberry jam 

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325F degrees, and line three baking sheets with parchment.
2. To make the dough, mix all ingredients together in a bowl until combined and smooth (it may be slightly crumbly, and that is ok, just squeeze it back together), then place on a piece of parchment paper and roll out 1/4 inch thick.  Cut into heart shapes with a medium sized cookie cutter (I used a heart shape) and place them onto two of the prepared pans. Re-roll any scraps squeezing them back together and rolling them out, and cutting into more shapes until all of the dough is used. 
3. Place the cookies on the pans into the freezer to chill for 5 minutes (or until the dough is more firm but still slightly pliable), then remove one of the pans and cut smaller hearts out of the centers of the hearts on that pan. Remove the hearts and set them on the third pan. Place all of the pans back into the freezer until the cookies are completely firm, about 10 minutes.
4. When they are firm enough, place the pans in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until set and just barely beginning to brown at the edges.
5. Remove the pans from the oven and let cool completely on wire racks.
6. When the cookies have cooled completely, spread a thin layer of raspberry jam over each of the larger cookies without the holes, then place the cookies with the holes on top of them (being careful as they are fragile, I used a spatula to move them.
7. Then spread jam over half of the smaller cookies and sandwich them together with the other half of the cookies.
8. Enjoy!  Store any leftover cookies in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer.