Christmas Cream Wafers

A Sparkling Sandwich Cookie for the Holiday Tray

These tiny cookies hit the holiday tin every December for good reason. The wafer is a three-ingredient pastry of butter, heavy cream, and flour. No sugar in the dough at all. The sweet comes from a sugar-coated outside that bakes into a slightly crisp, glittering shell.

The fork pricks aren’t decorative. They keep the rich dough from puffing up unevenly during baking, so the wafers stay flat and crisp enough to sandwich without cracking. A short, hot bake means the centers stay tender while the sugared edges turn golden.

The filling is a quick buttercream with an egg yolk, which gives it a softer, creamier set than a basic powdered-sugar icing. Tinted red and green, the buttercream peeks out from between the pale wafers for that classic Christmas tray look.

Pro Tips

• Chill the dough thoroughly before rolling. Cream-rich dough turns greasy fast at room temperature.
• Roll the dough on a generously floured surface and roll thin, the cookies don’t rise much and you want delicate sandwiches, not thick biscuits.
• Press both sides of each round into the sugar firmly. Loose sugar falls off in the oven and burns on the pan.
• Watch the bake time closely. These cookies don’t darken much, so pull them when they’re set but still pale.

Variations

• Swap food coloring for natural alternatives like beet powder (red) or matcha (green).
• Stir ½ teaspoon almond or peppermint extract into the filling for a flavored holiday twist.
• Sandwich with raspberry jam or lemon curd for a fruit-forward variation.