Swedish Cream Wafers

The all-time winner! Charlene's most beloved and requested cookie. Delicate flaky wafers sandwiched with pink almond cream filling. Try them - you'll understand why they're the favorite.

Servings: 60 sandwich cookies

Prep Time: 30 minutes (plus 2 hours chilling)

Cook Time: 15 minutes per batch

Ingredients

For pastry: 1 cup lightly salted butter, at room temperature
For pastry: 1/3 cup heavy cream
For pastry: 2 cups all-purpose flour
For filling: 1/4 cup lightly salted butter, at room temperature
For filling: 1 egg yolk
For filling: 1/2 tsp almond extract
For filling: 4 drops red food coloring
For filling: 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar

Instructions

Pastry: In a medium sized mixing bowl beat butter until creamy. Stir in cream and beat a few seconds longer. Mix in flour. Cover mixture in bowl with plastic wrap and chill until firm, 2 hours or longer. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

On a lightly floured board roll out dough, one fourth at a time to 1/4" thickness. Cut with deeply fluted 1-inch round cutter. Gather trimmings together and chill before rerolling. Place cookies 1-inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. Pierce each cookie 2 or 3 times with tines of a fork to make a tufted pattern. Bake about 15 minutes, until lightly puffed and barely taking on color. Remove from oven and carefully remove one at a time to wire racks to cool.

Filling: beat butter in a small bowl until creamy. Beat in yolk. When smooth and well blended, mix in almond extract, red food coloring and then confectioners' sugar. Make sandwich cookies, using about 1/4 teaspoon of filling for each sandwich. They freeze well.