New Sandwich Cookies {Part 2}

Let me warn you, read this post quickly, preheat your oven now, and get out your supplies PRONTO because these are the best cookies you may ever taste! I was asked to make some sandwich cookies for a birthday gift and whenever I do an order I always try to find out a little about the gift receiver. So for these I was told that the birthday girls favorite candy was plain ole Hershey's chocolate bars. Yum!
So I had a fabulous thought...what about Hershey's milk chocolate filling inside of a buttery chocolate chip cookie! Double YUM! It just so happened that I had recently seen a recipe, again on Callye's site, for chocolate chip roll out cookies. Ok these cookies are great at baseline...but when sandwich'd around my Hershey's filling...UNREAL! So here's what you do...make and bake your cookies, prepare your filling-chill slightly, and then assemble the sandwich cookies.
I made a couple of changes to the cookie recipe which I must say really amped it up a notch.

• I used milk chocolate chips to stay in line with the milk chocolate filling.
• I used one rounded tsp.(instead of 1/2 tsp.) of course salt, THIS IS KEY! When you are eating these delectable treats you will come across a piece of course salt and it gives you an unexplainable flavor burst and takes these cookies from a 10 to a 10+!

Ok so make your cookies with the above hints and the above link. Then lets get to the filling...my desire here was to minimize changing the taste of the Hershey's chocolate bar in any way, therefore I wanted to use non-dominating components to create a filling that is not only delicious but also sturdy enough to hold up in the mail since I was shipping them. So here is what I came up with.

Hershey's Chocolate Filling:

• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (come on shortening is not bad for you, just use it!)
• 2-3 cups confectioners sugar
• 1/8 tsp. fine salt
• 1/2 tsp. butter-vanilla emulsion (or just regular vanilla extract works just fine)
• 1 1/2 king size Hershey's bars

Cream shortening, sugar, salt & vanilla until well combined. Melt the chocolate bars in the microwave in 30 second intervals (Hershey's melts quickly; hence its usefulness in S'mores, so be careful not to burn it). Allow chocolate to cool for 5 minutes and then fold chocolate into the shortening mixture. Fold until completely combined. Refrigerate a few minutes before spreading on your cookies.

Now to assemble, pair off all of your cookies. Spoon, spread or pipe the filling onto the bottom cookie and seal with the top cookie. Refrigerate to set.

Yields about 24 2" sandwich cookies

So I asked my hubby what the first thought that came to mind when he taste-tested the filling and he said...a Hershey's bar. This to me was a slam dunk as he had no idea what I was making or who I was making it for so therefore it was a blinded taste-test, right! And it does taste just like a Hershey's bar. So seriously stop reading this post and get your butt baking, these are worth it!

Happy Baking...Happier Eating!