| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 2 hr 28 min |
| Prep: | 20 min |
| Inactive: | 2 hr |
| Cook: | 8 min |
| Yield: | About 3 dozen |
Ingredients
- 1 recipe Sugar Cookie Dough, recipe follows, at room temperature
- 6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1 tablespoon pomegranate juice
- Small red sugar hearts, for decorating
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 tablespoon milk
- Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough
Instructions
- Prepare dough as directed and chill for 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Sprinkle a work surface and rolling pin with confectioner’s sugar and roll out dough to 1/8-inch thick. Move dough frequently to prevent it from sticking and add more confectioner’s sugar to the work surface and rolling pin as needed. With a 2 1/4-inch round cookie cutter, cut 72 dough rounds, re-rolling dough as needed. With a small heart-shaped cookie cutter (about 1 1/2-by-1-inch), cut hearts from the center of half the dough rounds. Place the rounds and cutouts about 1 inch apart on parchment -lined baking sheets. Bake until just set but not brown, about 6-8 minutes. Let cool on the pan slightly before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
- Meanwhile, make the filling: In a small bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, butter, confectioner’s sugar, and pomegranate juice until smooth and fluffy. Spread about 1 teaspoon filling on each round cookie and top with a cut-out cookie. Place a red candy heart in the center of each. Leftover filling can be used to sandwich the small hearts together.
- Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar. Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill. Cut into desired shape, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.
- Recipe courtesy of Alton Brown
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 36 servings |
| Calories | 147 |
| Total Fat | 8 g |
| Saturated Fat | 5 g |
| Carbohydrates | 17 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Sugar | 8 g |
| Protein | 2 g |
| Cholesterol | 27 mg |
| Sodium | 46 mg |
Reviews
I can make them for V-day.
I made these into tulips, because I had tulip cookie cutters. I used a neon pink icing inside that came through the miniature tulip cut in the top cookie. Very pretty, and so neat. They look so clean that they could be from a bakery. You can play with this idea and make some really cute ideas :
I will try this, but I will not use the Cream Cheese. I am making them for my son’s 6th Grade class and I know they will not like the Cream Cheese filling regardless the color or added flavor. I may try a chocolate moussee
I made these for this past Valentine’s day and LOVED them. I made a few changes though.. I did it with chocolate chip cookies with good ol Betty Crocker bagged mix (those are preferred by my hubby) added corn syrup to keep the cookies moist, and added extra pomegranate juice to get more flavor. They were so good and everyone loved them.
It was delicious! It was hard at first when I took them out in the oven and made the sandwiches but the next day, they became REALLY SOFT! It was awesome! I think if you didn’t fill the little cut out hearts with the cream cheese mixture, the filling would be enough. Otherwise, I would recommend making another half a batch of the filling to taste it.
Well, at first they came out very hard, which made me worried since I made so many of them, but after a few hours they became soft. I used unsweetened raspberry preserve instead of the cream cheese mixture, however. Was not bad at all.
I haven’t made these cookies yet, but I am looking forward to doing so this weekend. I was wondering, could I use store bought cookie dough instead of using Alton’s recipe??
I made these for my boyfiend for Valentines Day and he loved them. I cut back on the baking time by an min. and the cookies were a tad chewy which we both like. The filling was sweet and creamy and I also used a variety of cookie cutters. I will definitely make these again.
These turned out great! Very easy to make and everyone commented on how “fancy” they looked. I didn’t have any juice, so I melted some dark chocolate & raspberry jam and mixed with the frosting. YUMMY!
I also let the dough chill over night… it was fine in the end. When I added the tablespoon of pomegranate juice the filling still tasted too much like cream cheese for my taste so I added quite a bit more until the taste started to seep through. I also added a bit of red sugar to the mix to make the color more rosy. I couldn’t find tiny sugar hearts to put in the center so I sprinkled a little bit of the red sugar into the hearts! They are so cute and everyone loved them!