Martha's Pink Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies

So, I signed up for Martha Stewart's "Cookie of the Day" to be delivered to my inbox every morning last fall. I don't know why I did this, I generally don't like anything like that to hit my inbox, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. It hasn't been bad, I generally ignore them. What, Martha thinks that today's a good day to make pinenut cookies with rosemary? Too bad she doesn't know that it's NOT a good day to make pinenut cookies with rosemary. I usually look at the recipe and then I hit "delete" because even if it sounds good TWD usually keeps me in sweets for the week and I don't really have time to make much else. But every once in awhile there's a "cookie of the day" that piques my interest and this was one of them. I love pink grapefruit and I don't see that many recipes that highlight it as an ingredient so I thought that this one would be fun to try. I had to wait awhile to find the right time to make them though and when I offered to make food for my friend who just had foot surgery I knew that I wanted to make these.


Even though I love cookbooks, this is a time when I really love using recipes on the internet. The comment factor is just such a bonus sometimes. People had commented that the cookies fell short on delivering grapefruit flavor and that the frosting tasted like nothing more than butter and powdered sugar. So, I did what one of the commenters suggested and added more grapefruit juice (about 1/3 cup) and I tried to make sure that there was plenty of pulp in that juice. It actually made for some very pretty pink flecks in the dough. The sugar scented with grapefruit zest also gave it a nice flavor.


For the frosting, I ignored Martha's recipe altogether and made a cream cheese frosting and I added grapefruit sections to the frosting while I was blending it. This made the frosting a little thinner than usual but it tasted fantastic and I'm generally not a huge fan of cream cheese frosting.

Pink Grapefruit Sandwich Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart

• Grated zest of 1 Ruby Red grapefruit, plus 1/3 to 1/2 cup freshly squeezed juice
  
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 large egg yolks

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a small bowl, combine zest with 1 tablespoon sugar; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and remaining sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add egg yolks, and beat until combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Beat in reserved zest-sugar mixture. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the juice, and beat to combine.
Turn out dough onto a piece of plastic wrap, and shape into a 1-inch-thick disk. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out disk to 1/8 inch thick using a lightly floured rolling pin. Using a lightly floured 2-inch round cookie cutter, cut out rounds and place about 1 inch apart on prepared sheet. Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until edges are golden, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack to cool 5 minutes. Transfer parchment paper and cookies to rack to cool completely.
Using an offset spatula, spread 1 tablespoon filling onto flat sides of half the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies, keeping flat sides down. Once filled, cookies can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Pink Grapefruit Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz cream cheese (I used reduced fat, what's the point, really, but it's what I had on hand)
• 1 stick of unsalted butter
• 3 c powdered sugar
• pink grapefruit sections

In a food processor, or with a mixer, combine cream cheese and butter. Gradually add the powdered sugar. (Here's the hard part) Add a few sections of grapefruit (without any skin or pith attached) and blend. Taste the icing for flavor. I added grapefruit sections until I thought that the flavor was sufficient and the icing wasn't too thin.

I gave most of these cookies away but I did taste them with and without the icing and I thought that they were delicious. They have a nice, subtle pink grapefruit flavor that I really like. It isn't overwhelming but the sweet grapefruit flavor really comes through.