Raspberry Cream Sandwiches

Originally by Martha Stewart with some variations of my own.

Ingredients:

For the cookies:

1 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature

1 and 1/2 cups caster sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved

For the filling:

1 and 1/3 cups fresh raspberries

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

212 grams white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/3 cup heavy cream

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 350f/180C. Make cookies: whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy about 2 minutes. Add egg, vanilla extract, and vanilla seeds. Mix until smoother. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture.

2. Using a teaspoon, roll out dough into small balls and drop onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 2 inches apart. Press dough balls gently with back of spoon to flatten. Bake, rotating sheets halfway though until golden and just set, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool on parchment on wire racks.

3. Make filling: puree raspberries and sugar in food processor. Pour mixture though a fine sieve into a small bowl, pressing to extract juice, discard seeds.

4. Melt white chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Remove from heat, whisk in cream in a slow, steady stream. Add reserved raspberry mixture; slowly whisk until pale, about three minutes. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

5. Assemble cookies: spread 1 tablespoon filling onto the bottom of one cookie; sandwich with another. Repeat.

Some pictures of the entire process