Homemade Magic Middles

Make the "magic middles": In a very small pot, bring cream to a simmer.

Add chocolate, shut off heat, and whisk until chocolate has completely melted. Alternately, melt cream and chocolate together in the microwave, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. When smooth and creamy, use a rubber spatula to transfer the mixture to a piping bag, or a heavy duty ziplock bag with the corner snipped off. Pipe the chocolate cream into 24 1/4-ounce discs on a parchment lined plate.Refrigerate the plate until the magic middles are needed.

Make the cookie dough: Sift together cornstarch, flour, powdered milk and set aside. With a hand or stand mixer, cream brown sugar, sugar, shortening, butter, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and vanilla for about 2 minutes, or until thoroughly homogeneous.

Add in egg and mix a minute more.

Add in the dry ingredients and mix only until a dough forms. Divide the dough into 24 portions (a #10 scoop works great).

Fill the cookies: Take each of the portioned dough balls and flatten into a disc. Set a hardened chocolate piece into the center then wrap excess dough around it.

Roll gently between your hands to give it a spherical shape.

Place finished dough balls on a plate or in a large Ziplock bag and refrigerate for at least 24 hours, or up to a week. It's important to refrigerate the cookies for this length of time, otherwise the dough will spread too fast and the middles will melt out; not very magical, I assure you.

To bake: Preheat oven to 350° F.

Bake cookies on two parchment lined sheet pans for about 10 minutes or until they've just started to take on a little color around the edges. Cool and store in an airtight container, up to a week.