Oh, how I love strawberry season. Here's my next installment of Cookies for the Dark Side. The strawberries are marinated in balsamic vinegar and sugar to bring out the flavor. I used my chocolate-infused balsamic vinegar. The cocoa powder adds a little extra to the flavor. The chocolate is not strong in these at all; it's an extra depth of flavor that you don't taste until the end. If you aren't a fan of the cocoa bean, you can easily leave it out. The overall effect is that of a refined strawberry shortcake that you can eat with your hands.
Balsamic Strawberry Cookies
Ingredients:
1 1/2 c strawberries, diced
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp cocoa
1/2 c + 2 tbs white sugar
2 c unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup heavy cream
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F.
In a small bowl, combine strawberries, vinegar, cocoa, and 2 tbs of the sugar; set aside.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Cream together remaining 1/2 c of sugar and the butter; add vanilla. Cut the flour mixture into the butter mixture until combined; the dough will resemble coarse crumbs. Stir in the cream until dough starts to come together. Fold in the strawberry mixture, until just barely combined.
Drop dough by spoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheets, about 2" apart.
Bake in preheated oven 15-18 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven and transfer cookies with a spatula to a wire rack, and let cool. Makes about 30 cookies.
Very interesting indeed. Do you think the fat of the heavy cream is essential, or would a lower-fat soy creamer type of product do the trick?
ReplyDeleteThe cream is needed for the richness in shortbread, but I think they'd be fine with a substitute. I actually thought about trying my next batch with soy or almond milk to see what happened. My guess is they will still taste good, but have less richness to them.
ReplyDelete