Irish Creme Delights

I made these cookies to take to photo class tonight - since it's getting close to St. Patrick's Day I've been in the holiday spirit so decided to try these Irish creme delights (click here for source). 

They turned out good, basically a frosted snickerdoodle - and I do love snickerdoodles. The only real difference is adding either coffee liqueur or instant espresso coffee to the dough, and using coffee liqueur in the buttercream frosting - you could leave that out that and just replace it with additional half and half. I would sprinkle with cinnamon if you do that just to give the frosting a little more flavor.

 The recipe says it makes 48 1" dough balls, I used my small cookie scoop and got 40. I only baked 24 of them for tonight and froze the remaining unbaked dough (in balls rolled in cinnamon and sugar)  along with the extra frosting - I put the frosting in a small zip lock bag and put in it a gallon size bag along with the dough balls.

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 T. coffee liqueur or 1 t. instant espresso powder
• 1/4 t. baking soda
• 1/4 t. cream of tartar
• 1/4 t. salt
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 t. ground cinnamon
• 1 recipe Irish Creme frosting
• ground cinnamon (optional)

• 1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine butter and shortening. Beat with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the 1 cup sugar, the coffee liqueur, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour. 
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• 2. In a small bowl, combine the 1/4 cup sugar and the 2 teaspoons cinnamon. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll balls in cinnamon-sugar to coat. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. 

3. bake in preheated over for 8 to 10 minutes until edges are lightly browned. Cool on wire racks. 

4. Spread Irish Creme Frosting over cookies. If desired, sprinkle with additional cinnamon.

Irish Creme Frosting

• 3 T. softened butter
• 1 T. coffee liqueur
• 3 C. powdered sugar
• 1 - 3 T. half-and-half

• In a medium bowl, combine softened butter and coffee liqueur. Beat with an electric mixer on medium to high speed until combined. Gradually beat in powdered sugar. Beat in enough half-and-half or whipping cream (1 to 3 tablespoons) to make a frosting of spreading consistency.

roll the balls in cinnamon and sugar before baking

these also taste good unfrosted!

I froze the unbaked dough for later, under the plate in the gallon
 size bag is a small flattened ziplock bag with the leftover frosting.
I wrote the baking instructions on the bag so I don't have to look
up the recipe when I want to bake these later.