Carrot Cake Cookies With Cream Cheese Filling

These delicious carrot cake cookies are irristable. They are soft, tender they have the perfect balance of softness with crunch and chewy. They have the perfect amount of warm spices, then to die for cream cheese frosting that is so fluffy and melt in your mouth. These taste just like a carrot cake. I love carrot cake and also if you look on my blog cookiescrumbsandchickens.blogspot.com look up carrot cake, it will be the best carrot cake you will ever eat. Back to these cookies, I love carrots and for some reason spring reminds me of carrots even though I do bake with carrots all year long. You may want to double this recipe because they make 12 sandwich cookies if you have a crowd plus these will be gone very quick, these are perfect for parties, Easter, or any occasion..



Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup quick oats
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups grated carrots
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans 

Cream Cheese Frosting
• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 6 Tablespoons butter, very soft
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Directions

• 1. In a large mixing bowl add together the flour, quick oats, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt and whisk until completely combined then set aside.
• 2. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, or hand mixer if you do not have a stand mixer, and add and cream together 1/2 cup butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until well blended. Mix in egg and vanilla extract. Set mixer on low speed and slowly add in flour mixture and mix just until combined. Stir in carrots, then fold in walnuts. Cover bowl and chill dough 1 hr 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 during last 10 minutes of chilling.
• 3. The dough will be sticky, that is normal. Then place dough 2 Tablespoons at a time, roll them into balls so the are even. Place on parchment paper or a mat onto baking sheets, spacing cookies about 2 inches apart. Bake in preheated oven 11-13 minutes until centers no longer look kind doughy. Allow to cool on baking sheet several minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Cool completely then take one cookie and fill with cream cheese frosting then top with other cookie and sandwich the cookies together.  Store in an airtight container in a single layer.
• For the cream cheese frosting:
• 4. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or you can use a hand mixer if you do not have a stand mixer. Then add and whip together cream cheese, butter until smooth and fluffy. Stir in vanilla and powdered sugar and continue to whip until smooth and very fluffy.

Recipe and photo source from:http://www.cookingclassy.com/2014/03/carrot-cake-cookies/