Strawberry Swirl Cookies

Honestly? Life has been too hectic to write anything creative here. So here’s the quick rundown. Adding fruit to cookies is tricky. They add moisture you don’t want if you want it to retain that cookie texture, instead of just turning into a disc of muffin. No shade to a muffin disc, those are also really tasty but that’s not what I’m going for here. To fix that, we cook down the strawberries on the stove and drive off as much moisture as we can. Essentially we make the thickest goopiest jam you’ve ever seen. Then we carefully swirl it into some cookie dough, bake them off without mixing it too much, and you’ll have a batch of berry-swirled white chocolate cookies that are not only tasty but gorgeous, too. Some extra sugar and lemon juice in the jam brings the strawberry’s tart fruity notes forward, and the white chocolate in the cookies provides support for the strawberry’s oft-ignored buttery notes. I’d love to throw some green yogurt chips in these instead, but Kroger always discontinues their best products. Whatever. I’m not bitter, you’re bitter.

Ingredients

Strawberry Swirl

• 12 oz Strawberries, hulled, fresh or frozen
• 2 oz Granulated Sugar
• 2 tbsp Lemon Juice

Cookie Base

• 8 oz (2 sticks) Unsalted Butter, at room temperature
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 2 Large Eggs
• 10.5 oz (1.5 cups) Granulated Sugar
• 13.5 oz (3 cups) All-Purpose Flour
• 1 tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 batch Strawberry Swirl
• 8 oz White Chocolate, chopped in chunks

Directions

Cook Down the Berries

1. In a small saucepan, combine the strawberries, lemon juice and sugar. Weigh the pan, then write down the weight. You’ll need to cook this mixture down until it has reduced by about 9 oz.
2. Cool over medium heat until berries have broken down and the mixture has thickened. Once the it has started to thicken, reduce the heat to low and continue to cook and stir often until you have reduced the overall weight of the pan and its contents by 9 oz. (Ex. If the pan weighed 19 oz in step one, cook until it weighs 10 oz)
3. Transfer the berries to a heat-safe container and refrigerate until completely cooled.

Make the Cookies

1. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar, salt, and baking soda on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. This will take around 5-8 minutes.
3. Stop the mixer, scrape down the paddle and bowl. Add the egg and vanilla extract, then continue beating at medium speed until well combined, about a minute.
4. Stop the mixer again, and using a flexible spatula, stir in the flour by hand until combined. When only a few streaks of dry flour remain, add the chocolate and continue stirring until evenly distributed.
5. Add spoonfuls of the strawberry mixture to the dough, and carefully cut it into the dough. Do not over-mix. We’re aiming for swirls, like you might find in ice cream, but a little less mixed. If you mix it a bit too much it’ll be fine, but the texture of the final cookies will be much softer, and the marbling effect will be less striking.
6. Using a cookie scoop, scoop 12 portions onto each lined baking sheet, evenly spaced, and bake at 350°F until just browning around the edges, about 10-15 minutes. Let them go a bit longer if you like your cookies to have a more open texture, and take them out while the middle still looks a little moist and steamy if you like a dense fudgy cookie.
7. Let cool on the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
8. Store in an airtight container at room temp for up to 3 days, refrigerate for a week, or freeze for up to six months.