Vampire Cookies (Red Velvet Stuffed with Cream Cheese & Raspberry Jam)
Red velvet cookies stuffed with cream cheese and raspberry jam. A double batch of the 3:2:1 base turned red velvet, wrapped around a frozen Philadelphia cheesecake center hiding a dark raspberry "blood" core that oozes when you break it open. This one's a hard bake: cooked filling, frozen centers and hand-stuffed dough.
Ingredients
- 1¼ cupsall-purpose flour
- ¼ cupnatural unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tspbaking powder
- ¼ tspbaking soda
- ½ tspsalt
- 1 cupunsalted butter, softened
- ¼ cuplight brown sugar, packed
- ¼ cupgranulated sugar
- 2large eggs
- 2 tspvanilla extract
- 1 tbspred gel food coloring
- 1 tspwhite vinegar
- ½ cupPhiladelphia cheesecake filling, from the tub (filling)
- ½ cupseedless raspberry jam (blood)
- 1 tspcornstarch (blood)
- 2 tspwater (blood)
- ¼ tspred gel food coloring (blood)
- pinchcocoa powder (blood)
Method
- Cook the blood. Whisk the cornstarch into the water until smooth. Stir it into the raspberry jam in a small saucepan and simmer over medium-low, stirring constantly, until glossy and thick enough to coat a spoon. Off the heat, stir in the red gel coloring and a pinch of cocoa. The cocoa takes it from bright jam-red to a dark, realistic blood red. Let it cool completely.
- Make and freeze the centers. Scoop 12 heaping-teaspoon mounds of Philadelphia cheesecake filling straight from the tub onto a parchment-lined plate. Freeze for a few minutes until firm enough to hold a dent, then press a deep dent into each with your thumb and fill it with about ½ teaspoon of the cooled blood. Save the leftover blood for the tops. Freeze until solid.
- Cream. Beat the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs and color. Beat in the eggs, vanilla, red gel coloring and vinegar. Add a little more gel if you want a deeper red; the color darkens slightly as it bakes.
- Add the dry. Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt together, then mix into the butter mixture just until no flour streaks remain.
- Chill the dough. Cover and refrigerate the dough. Firm dough is much easier to wrap around the filling and keeps the cookies from spreading thin.
- Stuff. Heat the oven to 375°F. Divide the dough into 12 portions (about ¼ cup each). Flatten one in your palm, set a frozen center on it blood-side down, and wrap the dough completely around it. Pinch the seam closed and roll into a smooth ball. Any gap means a leak, so seal well. Place 6 per parchment-lined sheet, seam-side down.
- Bake one sheet at a time until the edges are set and the centers look just slightly underdone.
- Rest and splatter. Let the cookies rest on the sheet so the centers set. Warm the leftover blood for a few seconds, then drizzle or flick it over the tops with a spoon for a Halloween splatter.
Difficulty: hard. Natural cocoa and vinegar are acidic, so this uses ¼ tsp baking soda alongside the baking powder. If you use Dutch-process cocoa, skip the soda and vinegar. The sugar is split half brown, half white: brown keeps them thick and chewy for stuffing, while white keeps the color red instead of brownish. The cornstarch is what keeps the jam a gel that oozes instead of boiling away. Store in the fridge because of the cheesecake filling, and for photos and video, break one open about 15 minutes out of the oven, when the blood is at its oozing best.