Raspberry Shortbread Sandwich Cookies & Brown Sugar Brownies

When C&H/Domino Sugar contacted me and asked if I would like to try some of their recipes, AND offered to send me a $20 gift card to cover the ingredients, of course I said yes :) They have some really fun ideas on their website, including plenty of Christmas cookies, ideas for hosting a cookie swap, recipes for homemade sugar scrubs and cookie mixes in a jar, and plenty more.

You can find the recipes for both of these on the right side bar here.

After perusing a while, I decided on the Raspberry Shortbread Sandwich Cookies and Brown Sugar Brownies.

Their recipe suggests using a star cookie cutter, but I chose a bell. I used the wide end of a decorating tip to make the hole that the jam peeks through. This was a very simple recipe, easy to roll out and cut and they tasted great! I made some with blackberry jam, some with Nutella, and some with both.

As with all shortbread, at least in my opinion, they taste best when cooled to room temperature, and even better the next day when the jam has had a chance to soak into the cookie! Yum.

As an alternative, I made some reindeer from the bell cutters by turning the bell shape upside down, pressing some broken pretzel sticks into the dough, and cutting two holes for eyes.

I didn't have any red hot candies, which would have worked well for the nose, so instead I pinched off small pieces of dough, rolled them into balls and rolled them in red sugar. Then I gently pressed those onto the dough and baked!

I definitely recommend polling the dough between sheets of parchment paper. It's easier to roll and to lift and chill.

Now for the brownies. Because I can never seem to leave well enough alone, I added some mint chips to my brownies instead of nuts.

This made them rather gooey, they were quite good! The recipe was very easy to put together, though next time I think I would stick with either regular chocolate chips or leave them out all together.

I lined the baking pan with foil before adding the batter. That makes it much easier to remove the brownies from the pan. Let them cool completely, then simply lift them out of the pan and cut!

Be sure to browse around their site to find plenty of cookie and brownie recipes!