These cookies were the brain child of me being on a cute, linzer sandwich cookie-type of kick, and me having passionfruit puree to play around with. I thought from a visual standpoint, how cute would it be to make these cookies look like a starry night’s sky? And voila, that’s how we ended up here with these Starry Night Lilikoi Cookies. Fun fact, lilikoi is the Hawaiian name for passionfruit, which are these round fruits commonly found in the southern hemisphere of the world, and contain these crunchy seeds and really tangy, sour-sweet pulp. I love passionfruit/lilikoi. Whenever I can get it fresh, it is a good day – usually I can between friends and family being fortunate enough to grow fresh passionfruit, and me being a great beneficiary of that. However, in this case, I just happened to have passionfruit puree, so I decided, why not use that to make a bright yellow filling? Passionfruit works gorgeously with sugar and butter, because it is so pleasantly tart, so a cookie or a tart of some kind made the most sense. And since I was making black sesame shortbreads anyways, it was a no-brainer for me to pair the two together!

For this recipe, it is two components – black sesame shortbread and a passionfruit ganache. The shortbread is made with a dough similar to alfajores, using butter, sugar, and flour, but also cornstarch instead of an egg yolk to bind it all together. The black sesame powder is added into the dough as well, just to give it a nice dark, nutty flavor. I cut star shapes into half of my disks of dough, just so that the cookies, when sandwiched together, create these fun shapes with the filling being front and center in the cookies themselves. Speaking of the filling, I went with a passionfruit ganache. Ganache is a filling or sauce usually made with chocolate and cream. Instead of chocolate, I went with Passionfruit Inspiration, which is essentially passionfruit-flavored chocolate made by emulsifying passionfruit puree with cocoa butter. By mixing that in with a passionfruit curd, you went up with this firm but creamy passionfruit filling that plays off of the nutty, sweet, and buttery flavor of the black sesame shortbreads! I purposely left added sugar out of the ganache filling, just to keep the passsionfruit a little more tart-forward – this guarantees that it will play off of and balance the more-prominent sweetness in the cookies a little better. I also sprinkled on some edible star glitter on my cookies to finish off the aesthetic, but not everyone had access to those, so you can really decorate the cookies with sprinkles or edible glitter if you want to.

Makes 24 cookie sandwiches:
For the shortbread:
1/2 stick unsalted butter
2 tbsp granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp black sesame powder

In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and salt until they reach a silky consistency. Then add to that the vanilla, and stir until incorporated as well. Finally, fold the flour, cornstarch, and black sesame powder into the butter to form your dough. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes. Then on a floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/8-inch thickness. Cut out 1-inch disks of the dough, and then in half of the disks, cut out 1/2-inch stars. Bake these pieces of dough at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes. Allow them to cool before attempting to assemble.

For the passionfruit ganache:
2oz passionfruit puree
1 tsp gelatin powder + 1 tbsp cold water
1oz Passionfruit Inspiration
1 tbsp cornstarch
a pinch of salt
1 tbsp unsalted butter

Whisk everything in a pot over medium-high heat until the puree begins to thicken and cling to the sides of your whisk. Pass it through a sieve to remove any lumps and transfer to a piping bag with a small round tip. Pipe about 1 tsp of the ganache onto the regular disks of the baked shortbreads, and then place on top the shortbread with the star cut out.

For garnish:
Edible star glitter

Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with edible star glitter if desired.