Gluten Free Chocolate Truffle Sandwich Cookies

Some of the best things around had their start as mistakes. Don't take my word for it, just look at these beaut's.

They were originally meant to be truffles, but instead we ended up with these! The cookies, which are more like British biscuits, have a nice crunch, but they're buttery and (surprisingly) light. Filled with vanilla, chocolate chips and walnut pieces, they provide much needed texture before, and after, the silky chocolate ganache.

ganache: French. derived from the French word for jowl, ganache is a glaze, icing or filling for pastries made from chocolate and cream.

Now about that ganache. It's a rich mix of melted milk chocolate, a few pieces of dark chocolate, double (heavy) cream and a hint of milk. I mentioned that these little nuggets were the result of a mistake, let me briefly explain. I had set out to make truffles--little ganache balls hugged by a coating of cocoa, coconut or candies.
My hiccup? I didn't spread the ganache into a thin enough layer when trying to set, so that the top of my chocolate pool was set but the subsequent bits weren't. Instead, I was left with this lovely firm top that gave way to fluid underpart. There was no way I could get that softly set chocolate to form a ball.

Out of failure, came the chocolate truffle sandwich cookies. They're dead easy to make: whip up some ganache, allow to firm up in the fridge for a day. Bake your cookies (the day after you make the ganache), fill with the gooey filling, munch and enjoy.
Fancy a go?


Ganache::chocolate, cream, milk
For the ganache you need equal parts chocolate and equal parts double (heavy) cream. Play around with the combinations that you like, you could use 50 percent milk chocolate and 50 percent dark or 25 percent dark, 25 percent milk and 50 percent white. Whatever you like, really. Just make sure it's equivalent to the amount of cream.
Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of boiling over on the stop. Warm the cream in a separate saucepan. Once your chocolate is melted, remove the glass bowl from the pan and begin to add the warmed cream, a little bit at a time. After the first bit of cream, you might find that the chocolate seizes up a bit. No worries, just continue to give it a good stir until it loosens before adding more cream.

After you've incorporated all of the cream add a splash of full fat milk. Decant the creamy chocolatey pool into a shallow dish and let cool at room temperature. Once cooled, pop it in the fridge to set.


Crunchy Cookies::flour, butter,margarine, sugar, vanilla extract, walnut pieces, chocolate chips
 To make two dozen small cookies, you want:
                     50 grams of unsalted butter
                     50 grams of margarine
                     150 grams of gluten free plain (all-purpose) flour
                     57 grams of caster sugar
                     2 tsp vanilla extract
                     1 tbsp chopped walnuts
                     1/2 tbsp chocolate chips


Using your food processor cream together your butter and sugar. Once creamed, add the vanilla, walnuts and chocolate chips. Pulse once or twice before adding the flour and continuing to combine the lot. Once a nice dough is formed, remove from the food processor, roll out and cut out your cookies.

You'll probably have some dough leftover. If you're like me, you'll probably nibble on it while you're cooking. But if you're a bit more restrained, wrap it in greaseproof (parchment/baking) paper, pop it into a Ziploc and store it in the fridge. (In a few weeks time when you're craving cookie dough ice cream but don't feel like leaving your house, break off some of the cookie dough into a bowl of ice cream and enjoy!)