Pineapple Filled Cookies

 PINEAPPLE FILLED COOKIES

13  cookies 

Ingredients

½   cup butter, softened

2 2/3 cups flour

1  Tablespoon baking powder

½   cup sugar

1/4  teaspoon salt

2  teaspoons vanilla

2  eggs

½   cup diluted canned milk
For the filling:

20 oz. can crushed pineapple, undrained

2 ½  Tablespoons cornstarch

¼   cup sugar

Instructions

1.  In a large bowl, cut the butter into the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt, with a pastry blender.

2.  Add in the remaining cookie dough ingredients and stir together with a fork until combined.  The dough will be soft and wet.

3.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for about 2 - 3 hours.

4.   While the dough is chilling:

5.  Place the pineapple, cornstarch, and sugar into a medium saucepan.

6.  Cook and stir over medium heat until thick and clear; this should take about 7-10 minutes from start to finish.

7.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool. 
8.  After 2 hours, preheat oven to 350°.

9.  Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator.

10.  Roll the dough out to ¼  inch thick, on a well floured surface.

11.  Cut cookies with a 2 3/4  inch round cookie cutter.  

12.  Make your sandwich cookies by taking one of your rounds and placing a generous amount of the pineapple filling in the center of the round.  I use a 1/8 cup of filling for each cookie, which is about 2 Tablespoons worth.

13.  Place another one of the rounds on top of the pineapple filling and pinch the edges shut.
14.  Overfilling is better than under filling at this point, it’s a good thing when the filling is squeezing out as you try to pinch it shut.

15.  I usually have about 6 Tablespoons of pineapple filling left over after filling all the cookies.  

16.  Place 2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet.

17.  Bake at 350° for about 22 - 24 minutes.  The bottoms will be golden brown but the tops will still be pretty close to the same color they were before baking.