Jam Filled Chocolate Sandwich Cookies begin with a fudgy chocolate sugar cookie dough cut out into stars and end with an orange strawberry jam in the middle. One of my favorite chocolate cookie sandwiches, and it makes a stunning holiday cookie recipe!
These Strawberry Chocolate Sandwich Cookies are so festive for the Christmas season, but are a favorite all year long! Turn these into heart cutout cookies and now you’ll have a perfect Valentine’s Day cookie dessert.
As I’m sure we can all agree, this year has simultaneously been shortest and longest year I’ve ever experienced.
Christmas is less than 10 days away, and yet I still feel like this year has barely begun.
Surprisingly, I’m way ahead on my Christmas shopping (not a lot to do this year but shop online, am I right or am I right??) but I’m so far behind on my Christmas baking. Usually there are Christmas parties and gatherings and it’s an all out bake fest all December long, but given this year, December hasn’t really felt like December at all.
I’ll be taking these next few days to put together a few cookie tins and spread some Christmas cheer to friends I miss so dearly.
These Strawberry Jam Filled Chocolate Cookies will be the first on the list, as they’re the perfect combination of sweet, fudgy, and flavorful.
Reasons Why I Love This Recipe:
- These jam filled chocolate sandwich cookies are made with a chocolate sugar cookie dough that uses both melted chocolate and cocoa powder.
- The use of cocoa powder gives these cookies a very deep chocolate flavor, while the use of melted chocolate keeps the cookies fudgy and soft.
- Orange and chocolate are so good together, and the orange really brightens up the strawberry flavor.
- I use strawberry jam, but you can fill these with anything: orange marmalade, raspberry jam, chocolate ganache, or Nutella.
- While the chocolate dough does need to be chilled, it still is a very simple jam sandwich cookie recipe.
Chocolate Sandwich Cookie Ingredients:
- unsalted butter: I always use unsalted butter in baking, because you can control the salt content.
- unsweetened cocoa powder: cocoa powder gives these cookies a very rich chocolate flavor.
- granulated sugar
- baking powder and salt
- espresso powder: this enhances the flavor of the chocolate in the cookies without tasting like coffee. You can omit if you prefer.
- melted semi-sweet chocolate: using only cocoa powder can make these chocolate cutout cookies very dry. The addition of melted chocolate adds a fudginess to the dough that keeps them very soft.
- eggs
- milk: I use whole milk or 2%
- vanilla extract: adds a rich sweetness to bring out the chocolate flavor
- flour
Orange Strawberry Jam:
- strawberry jam
- fresh orange zest and juice: if you’d prefer, you can use only the strawberry jam. I like orange with both chocolate and jam (chocolate orange cookies are amazing!), and I truly believe the orange enhances the overall flavor of these cookies, but you can omit.
How to Make These Jam Filled Chocolate Sugar Cookies Perfectly Every Single Time:
- Room Temperature Ingredients: The butter and eggs should be at room temperature to ensure the dough mixes properly.
- Cooled Chocolate: Allow the melted chocolate a chance to cool before adding it to the dough. If it’s too warm, it will melt the butter and possibly cause the eggs to scramble when they’re added into the mixture.
- Chill the Dough: This is extremely important. I know waiting for dough to chill can be frustrating, but it’s necessary for these cookies to keep their shape as they bake.
- Warm the Jam: This thins the jam out (along with the orange zest and orange juice), which helps make the jam spread easier when added to the cookies. This is especially important if the jam you use is extremely thick.
- Cutouts: I use star cutouts for these chocolate sandwich cookies, but you can use whatever cutouts you have on hand: hearts, circles, squares, etc.
- Additionally, you can mix and match, especially if you don’t have a large cookie cutter and small cookie cutter of the same shape. You could easily mix and match with whatever you have.
Recipe Steps:
- Ingredient Order: These cookies have a specific order to ingredients, which needs to be followed in order to keep this dough tender and not over worked (which makes dry and crumbly cookies).
- Cream the Butter: Cream the butter until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. It might seem like a long time, but the butter being light and fluffy really keeps these cookies very soft and tender.
- Cocoa Powder, Sugar & Leaving: Add in the cocoa powder, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, and espresso powder.
- Melted Chocolate: Make sure the melted chocolate has been cooled to room temperature before adding to the dough.
- Eggs: Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. This allows the eggs to incorporate properly into the dough.
- Milk and Vanilla Extract: Only add in 1 Tbsp of milk. The other Tbsp is reserved in case your dough feels too dry.
- Flour: Lastly, add in the flour. The flour is added last to keep these as soft chocolate sugar cookies. If the flour is worked too much, the cutout cookies will be dry and crumbly.
- Chill: Chill the dough at least 1 hour. The dough will be more manageable when cold, and the cutouts will keep their shape when baked.
- Roll Out: You can roll out the dough with flour, cocoa powder, powdered sugar, or a combo of some sort.
- Cut Outs: This recipe will make about 3 dozen chocolate cookies. When sandwiched together, it will make about 18-20 sandwich cookies. Make sure that you make an even amount of bottom halves and top halves (i.e., bottom halves: no small cutout; top halves: small cutout in the center.)
- Bake: These only need about 8-10-ish minutes in the oven. Dark chocolate cookies can be hard to tell when baked through, but you’re looking for the edges of the cookies to be firm and the centers just set (you don’t want them to be wet).
- Jam: Warm the jam with orange juice and orange zest over med-low heat, until the juice is fully incorporated into the jam and the jam has thinned out slightly. Allow to cool before filling cookies. I like a lot of jam in these cookies, so I use 1 cup of jam. However, you can reduce that if you’d prefer.
- Fill: Dollop jam in the center of the bottom cookies (about 2 tsp, depending upon how much jam you like in your cookies).
- Store: I like to store these in the fridge, because they get extra fudgy. However, they can be stored at room temperature.
FAQ’s:
Are these Chocolate Linzer Cookies?
- No. While these are very similar to a linzer cookie since it’s a cutout cookie with jam in the center, a traditional linzer cookie has some sort of ground nuts in the dough (most often, almonds or hazelnuts).
- These are truly Jam Filled Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, because it is a chocolate sugar cookie dough turned into a sandwich.
Do I Have To Use Strawberry Jam?
- No, feel free to use whatever flavor you’d like. Raspberry jam, orange jam, or even a ganache or Nutella filling would be amazing.
Why Do You Use Cocoa Powder and Melted Chocolate?
- When making any baked chocolate dessert, it’s important to get the right ratio of ingredients. A lot of chocolate cookies, especially chocolate sugar cookies, are very dry because of cocoa powder.
- While cocoa powder is very important for flavor, it makes baked goods very dry if there is not enough fat to counter act it.
- Thus, in these cookies, we use both cocoa powder and melted chocolate. The melted chocolate adds even more chocolate flavor while adding in the moisture the cookies need to remain soft and fudgy.
Can I Use Any Melted Chocolate?
- When it comes to this particular recipe, I really, really prefer using semi-sweet chocolate for the melted chocolate portion of the recipe. The semi-sweet chocolate keeps these chocolate sandwich cookies sweet without being overtly rich in flavor.
- However, you can use bittersweet, dark chocolate, or milk chocolate, if desired. Just note that milk chocolate will make the cookies a little less chocolate-y in flavor. Alternatively, dark chocolate or bittersweet will make the cookies much richer, since they are not as sweet.
Do I Have To Use Star Cookie Cutters?
- Nope! Use whatever cookie cutters you’d like.
- Also, if you don’t have a small cookie cutter to cut out the centers of the top cookie, that’s okay. These will still make great sandwich cookies even without the center cutouts in the top cookie.
Final Tips & Tricks for these Chocolate Sandwich Cookies with Strawberry Jam:
- You can use any jam you’d like: raspberry, orange, etc. You can also use ganache or nutella as well.
- Let your ingredients come to room temperature before making the dough.
- Spoon and level both the cocoa powder and flour. This makes sure you are not adding too much to the dough (which will lead to dry and crumbly cookies).
- Chill the dough for at least 1 hour.
- Make sure you make an even amount of bottom sandwich cookies and top sandwich cookies.
Other Cookie Recipes to Try:
- Favorite Chewy Sugar Cookies
- Cutout Soft Baked Sugar Cookies
- Chocolate Cutout Sugar Cookies
- Maple Sugar Cookies
- Molasses Cookies
Jam Filled Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
Prep Time
1 hr 20 mins
Cook Time
10 mins
Total Time
1 hr 30 mins
Jam Filled Chocolate Sandwich Cookies begin with a fudgy chocolate sugar cookie dough cut out into stars and end with an orange strawberry jam in the middle. One of my favorite chocolate cookie sandwiches, and it makes a stunning holiday cookie recipe!
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: jam filled chocolate sandwich cookies
Servings: 18 sandwich cookies
Ingredients
Chocolate Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp espresso powder
- 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
- 2 eggs
- 1-2 Tbsp milk (whole milk or 2% is best)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
Jam:
- 2/3 - 1 cup strawberry jam
- 2 tsp orange zest (optional)
- 1 Tbsp orange juice, fresh (optional)
Tools:
- 1 large star cookie cutter
- 1 small star cookie cutter
- or, you can use circle cookie cutters, hearts, etc.
Instructions
- With a hand mixer or a standing mixer, beat unsalted butter until light and fluffy, about 1 minute.
- Add in cocoa powder, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, and espresso powder. Mix until combined.
- Next, add in melted and cooled chocolate; mix until combined.
- Then, add in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add in vanilla extract and 1 Tbsp of milk.
- Lastly, add in the flour and mix until the flour is completely incorporated. If the dough is too dry (it’s crumbly and not sticking together), add in the remaining Tbsp of milk.
- Chill the dough for 1 hour, at least.
- Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or spray with baking spray).
- On a floured surface (alternatively, you could use cocoa powder or powdered sugar), roll dough out to 1/4” thick.
- (The dough will make about 36-40 cutout star cookies, thus making about 18-20 sandwich cookies.)
- Cut out large star shapes with your cookie cutter, and place the about 2” apart on the cookie tray.
- Using the small star cookie cutter, cut out the centers of half of the unbaked cookies (these will be the tops of the cookie sandwiches).
- Bake for 9-10 minutes, or until the edges are just firm, and the centers of the cookies are just set (this ensures they will be very soft).
- Allow to cool on the tray for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
- While the cookies are cooling, mix strawberry jam, orange zest, and orange juice in a small saucepan. Cook on med-low heat for 3-4 minutes, until jam is warm and orange juice is completely mixed in. Let the jam cool to room temperature.
- Spoon about 2 tsp of jam onto the centers of the bottom sandwich cookie, spreading the jam out from the centers a little bit. Top with the top sandwich cookies (the ones with the small star cutout).
- Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.
- Store at room temperature or in the fridge (I actually loved these out of the fridge! The cookie is extra rich and fudgy out of the fridge).
- Enjoy!
Recipe Notes
*You can omit the orange juice and orange zest, if desired. I would still warm up the jam to thin it out before adding to the cookies.
*Depending upon how much jam you like in your cookies, use anywhere from 2/3 - 1 cup of jam.
Here are some other cookie favorites:
White Chocolate Peppermint Sugar Cookies
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