These turned out great. I didn't have any almond paste, and the grocery store does not offer any, so I made the recipe exactly as is without it...and they came out fantastic. I also did not cut the melted chocolate chips with anything. The trick to cutting without breaking is to cool it enough to keep its form, but not enough to break. You can finish cooling them after you cut them. I tried to add butter and cream to make it smooth, and it came out clumpy...so I used THAT chocolate to make fudge and finished off the cookies with straight melted chocolate chips. I'm the one that takes cookies and such to work and everyone absolutely loves them. My family and friends all gave this one a 5 star thumbs up. Just to clear a few things up...you don't HAVE to use the jam on the recipe. I used strawberry jam on both layers and it was great. Next time, I may use lemon pie filling. Another would be to add different extracts to each layer (strawberry, vanilla and chocolate for a neopolitan cookie)...with the chocolate layer colored brown of course. You can use icing (powder sugar w/water) to bind the layers. The possibilities are pretty wide.

Reviewed On: Aug. 21, 2009