Cream Wafers
Cream wafers are a type of sandwich cookie that pair delicate, buttery, sugar-coated cookies with a filling of buttercream icing. You are more likely to see this at an afternoon tea than as an after-dinner dessert.
Total Time
2 hours
Servings
20 cookies
Butter, softened 1 cup 230 g
All-purpose flour 2 cups 240 g
Whipping cream (30–40% butterfat) ⅓ cup 75 g
White sugar ½ cup 100 g
Buttercream icing, such as the Simple Buttercream recipe, colored pastel if desired ~1 cup (250 mL)
Cut the butter into smaller pieces.
Put the butter pieces and flour into a mixing bowl, and blend the ingredients together. You can do this by hand or with an electric mixer.
Pour in the the whipping cream, and mix gently until the dough holds together. Do not overmix, or the cookies will be tough.
Turn the dough out onto the counter or a flat board and form into a disk. If you cover your work area with plastic cling wrap, you do not need to put any flour on the surface. Cover the top of the dough with another layer of plastic wrap to keep your hands or rolling pin clean. You will also be able to re-roll and use the scrap dough with a lower risk of the second rolling being tough.
If you are working on a counter or board, sprinkle a large spoonful of flour on the surface before taking the dough out of the mixing bowl, and then another spoonful on top. Use just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking too much.
Roll the dough out until it is ⅛ inch (3–4 mm) thick and almost as big as your baking sheet.Rolling the dough between plastic wrap to prevent sticking
Place the whole sheet of dough on your baking pan, and put it in the freezer for at least 20 minutes until it is completely frozen. If you are using plastic cling wrap, leave the dough on the plastic cling wrap.
20 minutes
If you have too much dough to fit on your baking sheet, divide the dough into parts and repeat the process until all of the dough has been rolled out and placed in the freezer. Sheets of dough can stack on top of each other in the same pan, as long as there is a layer of plastic cling wrap or other barrier between them, to keep the sheets of dough from sticking to each other.
If you cover the sheets of dough tightly to prevent them from drying out or absorbing other smells and flavors from the freezer, they can stay in the freezer for at least a week.
Put the white sugar in a shallow bowl or on a small plate.
Remove one sheet of dough from the freezer. If you have rolled it on plastic cling wrap, loosen the frozen dough (both sides) from the plastic wrap.
Using the cookie cutter, cut out as many circles of dough as you can. Set aside scrap dough for re-rolling and re-freezing.
Dip both sides of each cookie into the bowl of sugar, and place them on an ungreased, unlined baking sheet. If the frozen dough starts melting, then it may become difficult to pick up the cookies without stretching them. If this happens, you can put the sheet of dough back into the freezer for a few minutes so it can firm up again.
The cookies do not expand much in the oven, so they can be placed fairly close together on the baking sheet, but you don't want to let them touch each other.
Dock each cookie with a fork to make a pattern and to prevent uneven bubbles during the baking process.
Repeat the rolling, freezing, and cutting process for the scrap dough pieces.
Preheat oven to 375 °F (190 °C, gas mark 5—moderately hot).
Bake each sheet for 7–9 minutes, until the top is set and the bottom edges are just turning brown. Be careful when moving the tray of cookies, as they slide around very easily. If your baking pan doesn't have a solid rim on all sides, the raw cookies might try to slide off the pan and onto the floor or the bottom of the oven.
7–9 minutes
With a cookie spatula/lifter, carefully remove the fragile cookies from the pan and place them on a wire cooling rack. Cool completely before trying to move them or frost them.
Put a small spoonful of frosting on the back of one cookie.
Place another cookie on top of the frosting to make a sandwich, and set aside.
Serve cookies at room temperature.
- •Store at room temperature. The frosted cookies keep well for a couple of days. Unfrosted cookies keep well for about a week if protected from excessive humidity.
- •There is no sugar in the dough—the sugar is used to coat the cookies later.
- •This recipe scales well (e.g. to half, double, or quadruple). If you are making a large number of cookies, consider using a piping bag to squirt frosting onto the cookies.
- •You can use gluten-free flour substitutes, but the result will be fragile. Try making thicker cookies so they are a little sturdier.
- •The whipping cream should be liquid (like milk), not already whipped.
- •If your butter is cold, the dough may have some drier or crumbly spots; if your butter is very soft, it may be sticky. If the dough is sticky, rolling it between sheets of plastic cling wrap will be much easier.
- •Ordinary white granulated sugar is the most typical, but you can use decorative colored sugar. Do not use powdered sugar, brown sugar, or sugar substitutes to coat the cookies.
- •The number of cookies you will get depends on the size of the cookie cutter you use.