looking to do some holiday baking?! here’s a recipe for strawberry sugar cookies, dusted with crunchy, tangy strawberry sugar.
there are some times when you want an aesthetic cookie – i’ve been oohing and ahhing over constellation inspiration‘s cookie advent calendar of recent, and cloudy kitchen‘s cookie boxes have been on my radar for years. i don’t have the patience or motivation for these right now, but someday!! i will be that retired lady who bakes cookies for everyone, thank you very much.
my friend and i tried our hands at the mild version of this recently, with these black-and-white-and-green cookies. and they were disappointing. we are both major bon appetit fans (we’ve derived major entertainment and amusement from claire’s mentos video), and zeroed in on what we thought was a matcha chocolate cookies. spoiler: it is not. that should have been our first indicator, especially since we’re both peppermint > fresh mint in baked goods people. the glaze was more hot cocoa than chocolate, so the flavor was not what we expected, not to say anything about how messy and flat our cookies came out in comparison to our aspirations.
so when i’ve spent 4 hours on cookies that weren’t bad but weren’t great, all i want is a nap and something briny to dislodge the sweetness. and then i want some reliable cookies. enter stage left: these strawberry sugar cookies.
the majority of the sugar cookies of my life have been the overly floured kind that roll out nicely and can get punched into ninjas/trees/hearts/gingerbread people. these, courtesy of the oil and powdered sugar in the dough, are a lot more delicate and crumble upon impact. they’re the disruptors of the sugar cookie field (i was in a brand marketing workshop last week, and being in sf, “disruptor” was predictably over-used), the croissant to the basic sugar cookie’s white bread.
these strawberry sugar cookies are pretty rich, so a quick imprint of freeze-dried strawberry sugar onto the cookies lends an air of sweet, fruity balance. they’re suitable for holiday baking (though i definitely would not recommend if you’re trying to ship these), or even for valentine’s given the hint of pink on top.
1 year: three layer peppermint brownies | white peppermint cake
2 years ago: cherry almond croquant, furikake chex mix
3 years ago: snickerdoodles, herby rice with grapes and pecans
4 years ago: coffee almond shortbread cookies, pumpkin spice waffles
5 years ago: zha jiang mian, vanilla coconut quinoa pudding
6 years ago: on toast, applesauce granola
- 2 sticks unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 cup canola oil
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp cream of tartar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup freeze-dried strawberries finely ground
- 1/4 cup coarse sugar
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Cream together the butter, oil, powdered sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla; it will look curdled, but have no fear. Add the dry ingredients and blend until combined.
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Drop by teaspoons onto baking sheet. Mix the freeze-dried strawberries and coarse sugar together in a small bowl. Dip the bottom of a flat glass in this sugar, then press down the cookies with the sugar coated bottom. (When I’m pressing out these cookies, it can be hard to get the sugar to stick to the glass. I usually dampen the bottom of the cup with a bit of water for the first cookie to get it going).
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Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden. Move the cookies to a cooling rack, and cool completely.
From Mrs. Matsushita. I’m not sure where she originally got this recipe, but upon a quick search online, it seems like these are more common than I originally thought (it’s like the Alaskan blueberry coffee cake all over again).
more cookies besides these strawberry sugar cookies
toasted almond thumbprint cookies
I love sugar cookies!! And I soooo want to try that strawberry-sugar dust on top. Mmmmm!!
That looks so delicious. I never tried strawberry cookies. I think I am going to enjoy this.