Sam's Chocolate Black Cherry Cheesecake Cookies from Heaven

These are a little labor intensive, but it makes a ton of cookies and they are freaking good:)

Sam’s Chocolate Black Cherry Cheesecake Cookie Creation

Ingredients

Cookies:

1 Box of Betty Crocker chocolate fudge cake mix

3 tablespoons of melted shortening

½ cup cake flour

1 egg

4 tablespoons of water

Center:

2 packages of Philadelphia cream cheese

2/3 cup “Like It” size cup of black cherries from Cold Stone*

2/3 small carton of heavy whip cream

1/3 stick of soft unsalted butter

5-6 tablespoons of powdered sugar (depending on taste)

5-6 tablespoons of white sugar (depending on taste)

½ teaspoon of almond extract

Garnish:

1 tablespoon of shortening

½ bag of semi sweet chocolate

(or white chocolate or whatever you want)

Dash of almond extract

Directions

Cookies:

Combine the cookie ingredients in a bowl and mix until dough forms. Cover and chill for a half hour or so.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll dough out on a floured surface or use a floured rolling pin. Make the dough nice and thin, about the width of an Oreo cookie, maybe a little thicker. Use a cookie cutter or a spice lid to cut out the cookies from dough. Put each cookie on a cookie sheet prepped with nonstick cooking spray.

Take excess dough, re-roll and cut until all of the dough is used.

Cook for about 6-8 minutes. Until they look puffy. If you like your cookies crunchy leave them in a little longer. They are really thin, so they cook quickly.

Remove from oven and cookie sheet and let cool on cooling rack or wax paper.

This should make about 100 little cookies.

Center:

In a blender puree cherries with whip cream.

Add mixture into a food processer with cream cheese, butter, sugar, powdered sugar, and almond extract.

Mix

Add more sugar if needed.

Pour mixture into a frosting piping bag (a Ziploc with a corner cut off works fine too) and squeeze filling on the center of a cookie, top with another cookie.

Garnish:

Put half of a bag of chocolate chips into a microwavable bowl along with a tablespoon of shortening.

Microwave for 1 ½ - 2 minutes on half heat and stir. Repeat in 30 second intervals until the chocolate is smooth.

Add a dash of almond extract and stir.

Pour into frosting piping bag, with a fine tip (or zip loc with a small hole in the corner).

Once all of the cookies are in place, get a small stream of chocolate coming out of the bag and gently crisscross the chocolate stream over the cookies to make for a nice garnish.

*if you want your own berry filling you can create your own:

1/8 all-purpose flour

¼ to ½ cup sugar (depending on taste)

2 cups of berries of your choice

Dash of almond extract

The almond is actually used quite often in pie fillings, it accentuates the berry flavor. So don’t worry about using it again. You can use something like this in this cookie recipe or in your own berry pie creations. Happy cooking!