Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies with Orange Cream Cheese Filling

These cookies taste like old-fashioned Christmas.  The flavor combination of molasses, ginger and orange is wonderful.  I found the recipe on Recipe Girl.  She has an awesome list of Christmas cookies.

I did make a couple of adjustments to the recipe.  I doubled it, because I wanted to end up with more than 2 dozen cookies.  I didn’t count how many I had, but it was a lot and it took quite a while to bake them.  They’re so good though, I’m glad I doubled it.  I made a few other adjustments too.

Here’s what you’ll need for the cookies:

• 4 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 Tbs. cinnamon
• 1 Tbs. ginger
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 sticks butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar, plus extra for rolling the balls in
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.  In a mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugars.  Add the molasses, eggs and vanilla mixing well.  Gradually add in the flour mixture and mix until it’s well combined.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes or over night.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Shape the dough into 1″ balls and roll them in sugar.  Place them on a baking stone or ungreased cookie sheets.  Press the balls down with the bottom of a glass that is lightly greased and dipped in sugar.  Bake for about 13 minutes.  I kept shortening the baking time as I went a long, because 13 minutes seemed too long for my oven.

Let the cookies cool and then spread the filling on one cookie and sandwich it with another cookie.  Here’s what you’ll need to make the filling:

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 tsp. grated orange zest
• 2 tsp. orange juice
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
• about 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In the bowl of a mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter together.  Add the vanilla, orange zest and juice and ginger and mix well.  Add several cups of powdered sugar and blend.  Keep adding powdered sugar until you get the consistency of spreadable frosting.