Pink Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies

Citrus, Cookies and Bars, Fruit, Grapefruit

Pink Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies

It’s a girl! One of my favorite bloggers and friend Courtney of Cook Like a Champion and her husband are expecting a sweet baby girl soon. (She also has one of the funnest blog names ever.) And our friend Josie has put together a virtual shower to celebrate!

I chose to make Pink (er, Ruby Red) Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies: pretty, little sugar cookies infused with grapefruit juice and zest, and then filled with a grapefruit-spiked buttercream. The delicate, citrusy two-bite cookies are perfect for a pretty pink shower or an afternoon tea.

And I kind of have this thing for grapefruit… and an abundance of them (not that you’d have guessed).

You can see the full shower menu over at Pink Parsley and Cook Like a Champion – it’s full of wonderful food by wonderful friends and super talented food bloggers!

And a really super important note about the recipe. It was supposed to make 15 2-inch round sandwich cookies. I made 15 2-inch round sandwich cookies – and still had half of the dough left, and this was after double-checking that I had grabbed the 2-inch cutter and my 1/8-inch rolling pin bands. I froze the other half because no one in this house needs easy access to 30 insanely addicting cookies. The recipe below is the full recipe. If it’s just going to be you and your new grapefruit-flavored friends for the weekend, maybe you only make half the recipe.

Or maybe you don’t 🙂

Pink Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies

Grapefruit juice and zest flavor these light, cream-filled, sandwich cookies.

Ingredients

  • For the cookies:
  • 1 stick butter, at room temp
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 large grapefruit, zested and juiced
  • 1 1/2 cup flour
  • 3/4 cup cake flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • For the filling:
  • 1 stick butter, at room temp
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 Tbsp grapefruit zest (unpacked)
  • 2 1/2 Tbsp grapefruit juice
  • 1 drop red food coloring (optional)

Instructions

  1. Zest and juice the grapefruit. Reserve 1 unpacked tablespoon of zest for the filling and add the rest of the zest to the mixer bowl.
  2. Cream butter, zest, and sugar on high for 3-4 minutes, until light and fluffy.
  3. Add the egg yolk and mix, scraping down the bowl of the mixer.
  4. Whisk together the flours, salt, and baking powder.
  5. Add half of the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl, followed by 1/4 cup of grapefruit juice, and then the remaining dry ingredients, mixing each addition until thoroughly combined.
  6. Turn dough out onto plastic wrap and press into a 1-inch thick disk. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
  7. Preheat oven to 350 and line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
  8. Flour your work surface and divide the chilled dough into quarters.
  9. Roll the dough to 1/8-inch thick and cut using a 2-inch round cutter. Repeat until all the dough is used, you should get ~60 cookies.
  10. Transfer to prepared baking sheets and bake in batches, 8-12 minutes, until puffy and the cookies are just barely beginning to brown around the edges.
  11. Let cool a few minutes on the pan and then transfer to a rack to cool complete.
  12. To make the filling, cream the butter, powdered sugar, salt, and grapefruit zest on high 3-4 minutes.
  13. Add the tiniest drop of red food coloring and the grapefruit juice and mix for another minute.
  14. Spread 2 tsp - 1 Tbsp of filling onto half of the cookies. Top with remaining cookies (the browned bottoms of each cookie should be touching the frosting).
  15. Store in an airtight container in layers separated by wax paper.

Notes

Yields: 30 sandwich cookies

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living

Estimated time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Nutritional Information
Calories: 148.9 | Fat: 6.2g | Fiber 0.3g | Protein 1.1g | Carbs 22.9g
Weight Watchers PointsPlus: 4

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