Fauxreo Cookies

** Recipe from G-Free Foodie **

Cookies:
* 6 oz. butter, room temperature
* 7 1/2 oz. sugar
* 3 oz. brown sugar
* 1 Tbl. salt
* 3/4 tsp. baking powder
* 1/2 tsp. baking soda
* 2 tsp. instant coffee powder
* 1 Tbl. vanilla extract
* 5 egg yolks
* 8 oz. rice flour, sifted
* 6 oz. cocoa powder, sifted
* cocoa for rolling out the dough
* a few tsp. of hot water or coffee

Filling:
* 6 oz. butter or shortening
* 10 oz. powdered sugar, sifted
* 1 Tbl. vanilla extract
* 1/4 tsp. salt

Heat oven to 350.  Using a hand or stand mixer, cream together butter & sugars, along with salt, baking soda, powder, espresso, and vanilla bean seeds, just until combined.  Then (while still mixing) add in vanilla & yolks, one at a time. Once mixed in, use a spatula to scrape bowl down. Turn mixer back on. While mixing, add flour & cocoa. Mixture will be quite stiff, but continue mixing on low until uniform.  Divide dough in half, flatten each portion into a disc & wrap with plastic and refrigerate about 30 min. or up to a week.   If cookie sheets are dinged up or uneven, line them with parchment paper to create a flat surface for the cookies. Otherwise, simply have two, ungreased sheet pans at the ready.  Using cocoa powder instead of flour for dusting, roll dough to 1/8” thickness. (Thickness is very important, so check with a ruler! Two 1/4” wafers plus filling will give you a Fauxreo that’s nearly an inch thick. No good!)  Slide an offset spatula between rolled dough & counter, this will loosen dough from any places where it might be sticking. Use a 2” round cutter to punch out wafers. Use a butter knife to help lift and transfer cookies to pans.
Cookies will not spread very much during baking, so you can place them quite close together. Set aside.  Gather up, knead, and re-roll scraps, likewise arranging on a cookie sheet.

If you want a decorated top on your cookie, follow the next steps!!  (If you prefer a smooth-top cookie, then skip to baking!! :)  Now gather up any remaining dough (about 3 oz) and transfer it to a mixing bowl. Add a little hot water or coffee, just a teaspoon at a time, and mix until dough has been thinned into a paste. You can always add more liquid, but you can’t take it away, so add slowly and let each addition mix in fully before adding more.  When mixture has reached a consistency like frosting, transfer it to a piping bag fitted with a very small tip, or a zippy bag that has just a tiny hole poked in the corner. Use a heavy duty zippy bag, thin sandwich bags will burst during piping.  Pipe some sort of design atop each cookie.  Bake the cookies for about 12 min.

While the cookies are cooling, make up the filling.  With a hand or stand mixer, cream together the shortening/butter & powdered sugar, along with vanilla & salt. Scrape down bowl occasionally as you mix, and then let mixer run, on med. speed, about 10 min. Mixture will become very fluffy and white over this time, and will also become less gritty.  Transfer filling into a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip. Alternately, you can portion the filling with a melon-baller sized ice cream scoop, or by using zippy bag with the corner snipped off as a makeshift pastry bag.  In either case, wait until the cookies have cooled completely before filling.  Flip half the Fauxreo wafers upside down. Onto each, pipe or scoop a small dollop of filling (a 1/4 oz. “Double Stuf” and 1/8 oz. for regular) into center.  To finish, top with another wafer and press down until filling reaches almost to edge of  cookies. You must apply a very even downward pressure so filling will spread out evenly. Finally, transfer Fauxreos to an airtight container and refrigerate for several hours. It is this last step that is most important. After whipping the filling, it will be especially soft. Refrigerating it (especially if you’re using butter) is crucial for solidifying filling and helping it to bond with the wafers.

**  Make Neapolitan Fauxreos by dividing the finished filling into three portions. Leave one portion plain. Mix 2 Tbl. cocoa powder into another. Mix 3/4 oz. freeze dried strawberry powder into the third. Fill the cookies as directed.
**Make peppermint Fauxreos by including 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract in the cookie dough itself and 1/4 tsp. peppermint extract in the filling. Add a few drops of red/pink food coloring.