Gluten free pecan and choc chip cookies filled with chocolate ganache

My head is filled with recipes. I can walk through a supermarket and end up with a gazillion different things to make in my already busy head. And some ideas just have to be made instead of just thought up. This recipe is no different. I follow a bunch of food blogs on Tumblr (don't ever do that if you are like me, it will make you constantly hungry and constantly thinking about new things to bake) and one of the things that ended up on my dashboard was an ice cream cookie sandwich. I saw it and thought: "That would be so much better if the cookie were choc chip and the filling between the cookies would be dark chocolate ganache". And that thought kept coming back. It haunted me, saying: "Bake me, bake me!"

I put it off for about a week, but today I couldn't any longer. My youngest wanted to bake cookies so we made these heavenly choc chip & pecan cookies (thought up in the isle in the supermarket this morning) with a dark chocolate & nougat ganache in between them. 

I recommend you do not count the calorie intake and just enjoy them. :-)

I always bake a lot, so I have a stash of regular pecan & choc chip cookies now too

Ingredients for a small batch:

• 125 grams (4.5 oz) of soft butter
• 125 grams (4.5 oz) of light caster sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 125 grams (4.5 oz) of gluten free rice flour
• 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum
• 50 grams (1.75 oz) of chocolate (chopped up to tiny pieces)
• 50 grams (1.75 oz) of pecans (chopped up to tiny pieces)

For the ganache:

• 100 ml (3.5 fl oz) of double cream
• 100 grams (3.5 oz) of dark chocolate
• 50 grams (1.75 oz) of nougat (chopped) or nougatine

Normally ganache is made with some liqor in it, but since my kids eat these cookies too, mine is alcohol free!

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade or 450 degrees fahrenheit.
2. Put the sugar and butter in a bowl and beat it until it is light and fluffy.
3. Add the egg and mix it in. Add the other ingredients until you have a soft dough. If your dough doesn't form a ball, add a bit of the left over egg white to help  the dough along.
4. Put parchment paper on some big baking trays and form little balls the size of a walnut and place them on the baking trays. 
5. Put them into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes till they are golden.
6. Let them cool a bit before you transfer them to a wire rack to let them cool completely.
7. Now you make the ganache. Blitz the living daylights out of the dark chocolate until you are left with very tiny pieces. Heat up the double cream. Take it off the fire as soon as it starts boiling and pour it over the chocolate. Now stir it till it is all combined and let it cool off for some time. Since I am lousy at being patient I placed the bowl in the fridge for 20 minutes and then the freezer for some 10 more minutes (yes, I really don't have any patience) until my ganache was quite thick and added the nougatine. I stirred that in and then put a big dollop on the cookies and placed another one on top.

Enjoy!