weekend cooki(e/ing) experiment.

I was at my parents' house on Friday and saw that they had my July 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living (I thought I'd recycled all of them when I moved last January!), and as I flipped through it, I found this recipe for Dark Chocolate Cookies:

Ingredients
FOR THE COOKIES
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened dutch-process cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
3 oz (6 tbsp) butter (unsalted)
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

FOR THE FILLING
4 oz dark chocolate (chopped)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Steps (paraphrased)
1) Preheat oven to 325°F. Make cookies: whisk together flour, cocoa, salt in a small bowl. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until pale/fluffy. Beat in egg/vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture. Shape dough into 2 discs, wrap in plastic, freeze for 15-20 minutes.
2) With 1 disc at a time, roll to 1/8" thickness (lightly (or slightly more than lightly) floured). Using a 1.5" biscuit cutter, cut out rounds. Space rounds 1" apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Freeze 15 minutes, brush off excess flour.
3) Bake cookies, rotating sheet once, 12-14 minutes (or until edges are firm). Transfer, on parchment, to wire rack to cool.
4) Make filling. Place chocolate in medium bowl. Heat cream, sugar, salt in a small saucepan (medium heat), pour over chocolate. Let stand for 10 minutes. Gently stir until smooth. Let stand until firm enough to spread (~15 minutes).
5) Spread 1.5 tsps filling onto cookies. Top with remaining cookies. (Assembled cookies can be refrigerated for up to 2 days).

Things I learned
1) Don't be afraid to over freeze. Seriously. The more freezing time you can spare, the better, because this dough is *sticky*.
2) You need to use a cookie cutter for this recipe; a glass (which you use for biscuits) will not work. At all.
3) Confectioners' sugar *is* the same as powdered sugar.
4) Don't overcook the cream/sugar mixture.
5) Refrigerating the cookies to make sure they stay assembled is perfectly acceptable.

All in all, I think it was a success. They're edible, and they only made me about 30 minutes late to the party I took them to.