A playful holiday cookie featuring indulgent Lindor Milk Chocolate Truffles.

“When we settled in Toronto without any friends or family close by we realized that we had the beautiful opportunity to start our own holiday traditions, including creating the perfect cookie recipe,” says Alexandra Ambroise, who is Romanian and was raised in Chicago. Her husband Mathieu is Haitian and grew up in Montreal, and their son Joshua was born in Toronto, where they now live. “After a whole day in the kitchen, countless cookie batches, and the sound of Christmas music in the background, we finally made the perfect ones. I can’t wait to bake them for my grandchildren one day.”

Ingredients

¾ cup (190 mL) unsalted butter, softened
½ cup (125 mL) light brown sugar, packed
¼ cup (60 mL) granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract
½ tsp (3 mL) rum extract
1 ¼ cups (310 mL) all-purpose flour
¼ tsp (1 mL) baking soda
¼ tsp (1 mL) salt
1 bar (100 g) Lindt Excellence 78% Cacao Dark Chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (125 mL) chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)
12 (150 g) Lindor Milk Chocolate Truffles, sliced in half
Icing, dragées and other decorative toppings (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Lightly grease two 12-cup mini muffin pans. Cut out 3-inch strips of parchment paper, about ½-inch thick to place inside each muffin cup. Use two strips per cup, making an X in the cup with the parchment paper. This will make for easy removal of each cookie cup.
In the bowl of a stand mixer combine butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Beat on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg and mix well, about 1 minute, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla extract and rum extract.
In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Mix on low speed to combine. Mix in chopped chocolate and nuts.
Fill each muffin cup ¾ full with cookie dough. Bake for 10 to14 minutes, until cookies are just golden brown around the edges. As soon as the cookie cups are removed from oven, press down in the centre of each cookie with a measuring spoon to form cookie cups.
Let cool, 5 minutes, before lifting out of pan. Let cool for 20 minutes, then top each cookie with half a Lindor Truffle, round side up. To create the mini wreath look seen here, pipe store-bought icing around the Lindor Truffle and dot with dragées.
Substitution tip: Lindt Excellence 78% Cacao Dark Chocolate can be substituted with Lindt Excellence 70% Cacao Dark Chocolate. Lindor Milk Chocolate Truffles can be substituted with Lindor Coconut Truffles.