American Girl Sandwich Cookies

 Introducing Sweetwiches.

Elli has been bugging me for weeks to make a recipe out of her American Girl Recipe Calendar. I finally remembered to take a look and see what we needed to make something. The recipe for February looked fun (and easy) so I picked up the ingredients we needed to make these sandwich cookies.

The cookie recipe is similar to one my mom used to make. You use a cake mix as the base. I have to admit, I liked them better when I was a kid. They're pretty sweet. Of course Elli and her friend loved them.

We made home-made frosting to go in the middle instead of the ready made stuff. I thought cream cheese frosting would taste good so that's what I had them make. They didn't like it at first. Uh oh. But I convinced them it was delicious and suddenly it was. They pretty much licked the bowl, spoon and beater clean when they were done.

Elli's friend is a fifth grader. They hang out together in the after-school program on Monday and Friday. Both girls are only children. When they're together they almost like big sister/little sister. Except they don't fight.

They had the most fun making the frosting. They covered themselves in powdered sugar on purpose. It was everywhere. We ended up with a lot of extra frosting. So I put the pipe bags in a ziplock and stuck them in the freezer. We can make a batch of chocolate cookies and just thaw the frosting. It should work don't you think?

And of course they LOVED piping the frosting on the cookie. Elli was a bit spastic with her application. Her friend was very precise with hers. It didn't really matter because once you put the top cookie on you couldn't really tell .

We heard Don, the cookie monster, sneak into the fridge a few times. I think he liked them.

Lucky for us her friend took half of them home with her so there aren't many left to tempt him.

Sweetwiches
1 box of cake mix (any flavor. We used vanilla.)
1 stick of butter (softened. Ours was partially melted.)
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350º
1. Combine all ingredients together.
2. Scoop dough into 1" balls. Gently press flat with a glass.
3. Bake 10-12 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 (8 oz) bar of cream cheese softened
2 T butter
2 T milk
1/2 t. salt
1 t. vanilla paste (or vanilla extract)
4 cups powdered sugar
Food coloring (optional)

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer combine cream cheese, butter, milk and vanilla until fluffy. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time. Add food coloring (optional.)
2. Place frosting in a piping back let sit while cookies cool.
3. Pipe onto a cookie. Place another cookie on top.
4. Keep cookies refrigerated.

This would be a good cookie to make for the school bake sale. You could even make them in the school colors.