Sugar Heart Sandwich Cookies

Hold on to your hats everybody! I am actually going to put a recipe on this blog for a holiday...before the holiday occurs. (Ha..ha..ha) No, I am for real this time. I always seem to find great little recipes for the season., but never get around to putting them on here in time.  So in honor of Valentine's day, I made these cute little cream cheese cookies to give out to your loved ones.
Here is what you need
-3 cups All Purpose Flour
-3/4 tsp baking powder
-1/4 tsp salt
-1 cup Unsalted Butter, softened
-1 cup Sugar
-1 Egg, beaten
-1 Tbsp Milk
-Flour for rolling dough

 Side Note: There is Powdered Sugar in this picture. Ignore it. The sugar cookie recipe called for powdered sugar to roll the cookies in. This is what I like to refer to as a "not so good" idea. It was a disaster, it did not work in any way. I used flour for the second batch and it was fine.
First, stir your flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

 Place butter and sugar in an electric mixer, and beat until light in color.

 Add your egg and milk, then beat them to combine.  Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.

 In the meantime, gather these ingredients.
-6 ounces Cream Cheese, at room temp.
-4 Tbsp Unsalted Butter, at room temp.
-1/2 cup Confectioners Sugar
-1 Tbsp  Pomegranate Juice
-small Red Sugar Hearts
-2 1/4 inch round cookie cutters, 1 1/2 by 1 inch heart shaped cookie cutter

Sprinkle your work surface and rolling pin with flour, and roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Add more flour to the work surface, as you move the dough around, to help with sticking.

Take one half of your dough out of the fridge. With  the round cookie cutter, cut out as many rounds of dough as possible. With the small heart shaped cutter, cut hearts out of the center of half of the circles that you made. Keep these little heart pieces because you can make cookies from them also!
Side Note: Be very careful when lifting the heart rounds from the surface, they tend to sometimes strech and lose their shape.

 Place all of the rounds on a cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart on parchment lined baking sheets.  Bake until just set, but not brown, about 6-8 minutes. Let them cool on the pan slightly before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

 While those are cooking, you can start making your Pomegranate Cream Cheese filling. In a small bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, butter, confectioner's Sugar, and Pomegranate juice until smooth and fluffy.

Spread about a tsp of filling on each round cookie and top with a cut out cookie. Do the same with your mini hearts. Place a red candy heart in the center of each.

 Lots of love to all!!

Recipe courtesy of Wes Martin/Alton Brown.
Enjoy!