Vegan Chocolate Pistachio Shortbread Cookie Sandwiches

I was craving some dark chocolate short bread and my Mom had just gifted me with a jar of pistachio butter, so I thought why not combine the two and make Vegan Chocolate Pistachio Shortbread Cookie Sandwiches?! After all chocolate and pistachios are amazing together, look at all the Dubai chocolate items in the last few years everyone is buying! These turned out so delicious I had to share!

I love shortbread cookies because they are so simple to make with few ingredients. And I usually just press them into a pan, score them and bake them, this time I cut them into hearts since I wanted sandwich cookies. For the flour I used whole wheat pastry flour, but if you preferred all purpose or a gluten free all purpose baking flour, those would work as well.

I added plenty of cacao to the butter as well as a hint of vanilla to make these extra delicious! They smelled amazing, like brownies while baking! Once they had cooled I filled them with pistachio butter, and I could not wait to try them!

They turned out so delicious, buttery melt in your mouth sweet dark chocolate shortbread the perfect pairing with the salty rich creamy pistachio butter! If you are a fan of chocolate and pistachios, definitely give these Vegan Chocolate Pistachio Shortbread Cookie Sandwiches a try!

Vegan Chocolate Pistachio Shortbread Cookie Sandwiches

Makes 16 pieces

Ingredients:

• 1 cup or 2 sticks Earth Balance or other vegan butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cacao powder
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 cup pistachio butter

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the butter, sea salt, sugar, and lavender until the butter and sugar are well incorporated.
3. Mix in the cacao powder, vanilla and baking powder until well incorporated.
4. Mix in the flour until the dough is uniform in color.
5. Place the dough on a piece of parchment and roll it out to 1/4 inch thick.  Cut into shapes with a medium sized cookie cutter. Carefully move to a parchment lined baking sheet, and re-roll any scraps and cut out more cookies. Sprinkle with granulated sugar.
6. Remove from the oven,  and let cool completely in the pan.
7. Spread the pistachio butter (about 2 tsp over the bottom of half the cookies, and sandwich them together with the bottom of the remaining cookies (you want the bottoms on the inside because they are less pretty).
8. Enjoy!

Shortbread keeps for 1 week at room temperature in an airtight container or 4 months frozen in an airtight container.