Chocolate and Vanilla Linzer Hearts

For the ganache:
In a saucepan over low heat, gently heat the cream and chocolate together; stirring constantly until smooth and combined. Then remove it from the heat, cover it and chill for 30 minutes (or make the ganache several hours in advance and let it sit at room temperature until it thickens to a piping consistency).

For the cookie dough:
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the blade attachment, beat the butter on medium high speed for 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder, and salt; beat until combined, scraping bowl as needed. Add egg and vanilla; beat to combine. Add flour until incorporated.

Remove half of the dough into another bowl, making sure that the two portions are equal. Add sifted cocoa powder to one portion and mix to combine. Wrap each portion with plastic wrap and chill for 1-3 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Roll the vanilla dough to 1/8-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface (or between two layers waxed paper). The vanilla dough will spread a bit more than the chocolate dough so use the vanilla for the bottom half of the sandwich cookies. Cut heart shapes (a standard cookie size heart) out of the vanilla dough using a heart-shaped cutter. Put dough on a sheet tray that you’ve lined with waxed paper and chill it in the refrigerator until firm. Once the dough is firm transfer cutouts to an ungreased cookie sheet spacing them 2-inches apart. Bake for 8 minutes or until edges are set. Remove from the oven and cool completely on a cooling rack.

Repeat the process with the chocolate dough (using the same size cookie cutter that you used for the vanilla dough), and also cut a smaller heart in the center of each chocolate cookie cutout. Chill and bake cookies as directed above.

When both sets of the cookies are completed cool, sprinkle only the chocolate ones with powdered sugar (I left the smaller chocolate shapes unadorned).

For the assembly:
Place the vanilla cookies upside down on your work surface. Pipe a ganache “dam” a little bit inside the edge of the bottom cookies (place the dam so it will be hidden when the chocolate cookie tops are added). The ganache dam will keep the jam from oozing out of the assembled cookies (and it tastes really, really delicious too). Spoon about a teaspoon of jam inside the ganache dam (in the center of the cookie so it shows when you put the top cookie with the cutout on top). Top each of the bottom cookies with a powder sugar dusted chocolate cookie. Cookies may be assembled up to a day ahead.

Note: The dough can be made 2-3 days ahead (be sure to wrap the vanilla and chocolate doughs individually). Chill dough in airtight container. Alternately, cookies can be baked ahead of time. If you do this place the baked and unfilled cookies in an airtight container between layers of waxed paper. Store at room temperature for 3 days or frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw before assembling.

Recipe adapted from Better Homes and Gardens.