Sweet Things Remembered

In this post, we are testing a recipe for a strawberry flavored cookie with white chocolate chips. Let’s see if it’s a jar worthy cookie!

About the Series

This is a series inspired by my grandma’s cookie jar and my romanticized idea of always having a cookie jar full of cookies on the counter. In this series, I fill my cookie jar by trying out new cookie recipes and determining whether or not they are jar worthy. I provide the recipe as well as a review and verdict in each post. The previous two cookies featured were Lemon White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies and Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip with Reese’s Pieces®. This post is recipe number three of “The Cookie Jar Series.”

The Recipe

If you follow my blog, you may have noticed a bit of a strawberry theme going on with this week’s posts. This was not intentional, so I guess I just have strawberries on the brain. When choosing this cookie, I was scrolling through my Pinterest saves and came across a pin of a hack to make cookies out of boxed cake mix. The picture had some cookies that were pink, so I assume one of the mixes that person used was a strawberry cake mix. I thought about trying that out, but I think I’ll save testing another cake mix hack for a different post. I did start wondering, though, if I could just add blended freeze dried strawberries to a sugar cookie dough to get a strawberry cookie. Then, I thought about adding white chocolate chips to that to get more of a berries and cream flavor. Here are the steps I followed to make these cookies:

• Preheat oven to 350° and prepare 2 cookies sheets with parchment paper.
• Using a food processor or spice grinder, blend up a 1oz bag of freeze dried strawberries into a fine powder.
• In a bowl, mix together all of the strawberry powder, 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1½ tsp baking powder, ½ tsp baking soda, and ½ tsp salt. Set aside.
• In a microwave safe bowl, melt ¾ cup butter (1 ½ sticks) and pour into a mixing bowl.
• Add in ½ cup granulated sugar and ½ cup powdered sugar and mix well on medium speed (10-20 seconds).
• Add 1 egg plus 1 egg yolk, ¼ teaspoon almond extract, and 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and then mix again on medium speed until combined.
• Turn the mixer to a low speed, and then add the dry ingredients one half cup at a time and mix until just incorporated.
• Add in 1 cup of white chocolate chips and mix until just combined.
• Scoop the dough into balls using a 2 tbsp scoop. Roll each ball and slightly flatten it before placing it on cookie sheet.
• Bake at 350°F for 8-10 minutes (I did the full 10 minutes). They will look underdone, but they will finish baking on the hot cookie sheet after you take it out of the oven.
• After removing them from the oven, let the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes. Then, transfer them to a wire rack to cool the rest of the way. Enjoy!

Review and Verdict

I’ll just get right to it – these cookies were a bit of a disappointment. First, they don’t look very appetizing. I contemplated adding a little gel food coloring to the dough to make sure they had that pink strawberry cookie look, but decided I would just let the freeze dried strawberry do the work. Not a good choice. According to my husband, “they look like blob fish,” and he’s kind of right. The pink-ish gray color is just not it. Second, the flavor is lacking. The cookies don’t taste bad at all. I mean, I used a sugar cookie base, so if nothing else, we at least have blob fish sugar cookies with white chocolate chips. However, they are supposed to be strawberry and there’s really only a hint of strawberry. It’s like La Croix level of strawberry flavor.

I’ve done a little research and it seems like the better option for a strawberry cookie would have been to use fresh strawberries and make a reduction to add to the cookie dough, adjusting ingredients as needed to accommodate the moisture. I think that was my fear in using fresh berries – the moisture. I didn’t want to use them and end up with soggy cookies. I guess I learned a lesson, though, that simply adding freeze dried strawberries to sugar cookie dough does not make strawberry cookies.

Now, the question we’re all asking – “Are they jar worthy?” Reminder of the rating scale:

• Jar Regular – These are the cookies that will become a go-to, repeat recipe.
• Jar Guest – These cookies are tasty and were great to try, but they just aren’t top tier.
• Not My Jar, but Maybe Yours – These are cookies that weren’t my taste, but still worth trying.
• Toss the Cookies, Keep the Jar – These are cookies that are a hard no, likely due to a faulty recipe.

Strawberries and Cream Cookies = Toss the Cookies, Keep the Jar (except I’m not going to actually throw the cookies away)

With the horrendous color and serious lack of strawberry flavor, these cookies just did not work. The do taste good, which is why I’m still going to eat them, but they aren’t a strawberry cookie. I can’t confidently recommend using this recipe if what you want is strawberry. If you want a sugar cookie, though, omit the strawberry, use ½ tsp of almond instead of ¼, and use 2¼ cups of flour. I adjusted those two ingredients from the original sugar cookie recipe. I promise that will give you a delicious sugar cookie. For strawberry, you’ll have to find another recipe. If you do find a good one, let me know, so I can try it, too!