If there’s a time for celebration, here at The DIS, this week is it. Ten years ago, the Power of 10 initiative to raise $1,000,000 for Give Kids the World Village was launched. Pete and the DIS Unplugged team laid out the challenge to the DIS community: invite ten friends to give $10. Regional meets, activities and fund raisers were held, and people came and gave. All-day marathon auctions and events were held, and people came (or attended virtually) and gave. And those who couldn’t give did something just as powerful: they told their friends and spread the word. And, during this past Monday’s 12-Hour Podcast Marathon, the goal of one million dollars for GKTW was met and exceeded. It’s a time to celebrate, indeed. Because of you, the DIS community, once wish trips can resume, critically ill children will spend the week of their dreams in the middle of the magic with their families. WAY TO GO! Thank you so very much.
It’s with a party in mind that we come to this Saturday’s recipe. It involves sprinkles, and, if you ask me, any recipe involving sprinkles is a party in and of itself. We’ll be making Rapunzel’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwiches. We’ll be adding food coloring to vanilla icing, using over-the-top sprinkles, and creating a sugary snack to be enjoyed by all ages. It’ll be the perfect snack for a celebration of epic proportions.
We’ll begin with a chocolate chip cookie that differs slightly from what we’ve made here at Saturday Snacks in the past. As you know, at my core, I’m a Toll House cookie kind of gal. Yes, Grand Floridian’s wonderful chocolate chip cookie recipe has certainly spiced things up, but there’s just always that comforting recipe found on the back of that familiar yellow bag to come back to.
That being said, taking an initial look at our ingredients, we can see that a few of the required items are just a bit different from our good, old faithful Toll House recipe. We’ll be using one egg today instead of two, 50% more vanilla, 50% less salt, and we’ll be adding baking powder to the mix. The sugars, flour, baking soda, and chocolate chips are all the same.
Let’s get started. Go ahead and set two sticks of butter out on the counter to soften and preheat the oven to 375 degrees. If you’re pressed for time, you can use the microwave to help you soften the butter, but if you do, closely monitor the butter to make sure it doesn’t get to the point of melting.
We then get to toss the butter, the sugars, an egg, and a 1 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla into the bowl of a stand mixer and combine it. Even though the recipe is vague on this step, I went ahead and mixed it until it took on a creamier texture and lighter color. Don’t forget that you can use a hand mixer and a large bowl in place of a stand mixer if that’s what you have on hand.
Instead of having us combine the dry ingredients in a separate large bowl, the Disney Family recipe calls for us to simply toss in them into the large bowl with the now-combined wet ingredients. You could always mix the dry items together first if you’d like, but I simply went with the recipe here and added them one at a time.
A word of warning about that 2 1/4 cups of flour that you’re adding: you’ll probably get a bit on the counter when you start the mixer back up to combine everything. Just pretend it’s party confetti. I chuckled at myself a bit when that cloud of flour rose from the mixing bowl. A quick wipe of the counter kept my cookie making party going.
The recipe now calls for us to roll the dough into balls and place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. That would be the logical next step….excpet for the fact that we missed adding an ingredient. In fact, I’d argue that we missed the most important ingredient. Guess what it is? Uh huh. The chocolate chips.
The recipe omits the step of adding the ever-important chocolate chips. It just goes to show you that reading a recipe carefully – no matter who has created it – is important. I tend to rush through recipes, only skimming things before jumping in with both feet and seventeen ingredients. It’s a great reminder to take a deep breath and fully read through all of the steps first.
By all means, stop and add the chocolate chips here. I’ve edited the recipe below to add this step. And, by all means, save at least 6 chocolate chips to munch on while you’re waiting for the first batch of cookies to bake. You’ve earned them.
We can now roll the dough into balls. Because we’re making cookie sandwiches, I used an ice cream scoop. I wanted over-sized cookies on which to slather that vanilla icing, and with a celebration like we’re having, it only seems right that the cookies would be the size of your palm.
Because I made them so big, my cookies took 13 minutes to bake. The recipe says that the cookies would normally take 8 minutes or so, and we know from the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe that 9 to 11 minutes is preferred. You know the drill: babysit those cookies and pull ’em out when they hit your desired level of doneness.
This is the point at which you let the cookies cool before icing them. And I’m sure you know that I let them cool only just enough before getting that colorful icing sandwiched in between two of those glorious cookies.
Let’s stop and gaze at these fabulous things. They are huge, and just what you want from a chocolate chip cookie: slightly crispy on the outside, and chewy on the inside, with big pops of chocolate. We could stop the party right here and camp out with these cookies, and everything would be just fine. Except that that icing is calling us. And except for the fact that it’s fun to use food coloring. And except for the fact that those fun sprinkles are just sitting there waiting for us. Okay, let’s keep this party going.
While your cookies cool, grab a few small bowls and drop two or so large spoonfuls of vanilla icing into them.
Locate your food coloring box (and a magnifying glass because the writing on the box is incredibly small) and find the color combination chart.
This is when you get to channel your inner Rapunzel and mix those colors to create what brings you joy.
And then paint that icing all over a cookie that has cooled, and add another cookie on top.
Make sure that the icing peeks out of the cookie sandwich just a little bit so that the sprinkles stick to the sandwich.
And, friends, we’ve now come to the most fun part of all: roll that cookie sandwich with that colorful icing through the sprinkles. Roll it through as many times as needed to get the level of sprinkle coverage that you like. For me, that means three or four times because we want as many sprinkles as humanly possible covering that icing.
Make as many cookie sandwiches as your heart desires. Go until the icing runs out if you’d like. It’s a party, after all.
This treat is just that: a joy-filled, super-sweet treat. You’ll feel like you’re ten years old again, and, if you’re like me, you won’t mind.
The next time I make these yummy cookie sandwiches, I’ll likely make a buttercream icing from scratch. It’s easy to do, and just takes a few additional ingredients and steps.
But, in the meantime, it feels like we’ve walked away this weekend with two recipes instead of just one. This cookie recipe is definitely one that I’ll add to my it’s-Tuesday-and-cookies-would-be-nice rotation. And the fact that we’ve gotten creative with food coloring, icing, and sprinkles just makes everything that much more fun.
What are you celebrating this weekend? Whatever it is, savor it. And make a cookie sandwich or two or ten, and enjoy every minute. Happy Saturday!
Ready to channel your inner Rapunzel? The cookie sandwich recipe is below:
Rapunzel’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 cup softened butter
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 12 oz chocolate chips
- Vanilla frosting
- Food dye in various colors
- Sprinkles
Helpful tip: For a fun color activity for the kids, set up bowls of frosting in various colors and let them see what happens when they combine two colors. For example, show them how red and blue makes purple!
Directions
- Mix sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla in a bowl.
- Add baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour. Mix completely.
- Deni’s addition: For the love of all things chocolate chip cookies, add the chocolate chips now and combine.
- Roll dough into balls and place on a baking sheet about 2 inches apart.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes.
- Once the cookies cool, add frosting to the bottom of one cookie and place another on top, creating a sandwich.
- Press the cookies together slightly so the frosting peeks out the edges of the cookie sandwich. To finish, roll the sandwich into a plate full of sprinkles until completely covered.
Source: Disney Family