Strawberries and Cream Cookies

I'm not a huge fan of shortbread cookies, or of white chocolate, so it seems a bit strange that I was so intrigued by these cookies, which feature strawberries and white chocolate in a shortbread cookie. I've had my eye on the recipe since I bought the book though, and since I had finally bought the dried strawberries at the organic market a couple of weeks ago I decided it was high time I tried these cookies out.

I have to say these have been my favorite shortbread cookies to date. The strawberries work really well with the white chocolate and neither flavor dominate the slightly firm and crumbly cookie flavor. Well balanced and easy to make, these cookies are a winner.

I was a bit surprised though by the baking time -- 40 minutes?!? Holy moly that's a long time for a cookie to bake. The oven is preheated to 325, then when you put the cookies in you immediately reduce the temp to 300 -- but even at such a low temp it seemed like an awfully long baking time. I checked the cookies at 20 minutes though and they looked fine so I reset the timer for another 20, and sure enough they looked done at 40.

The only change I made to the recipe is that I used Devon Double Cream instead of whipping cream -- but that was only because I was out of whipping cream. I'm not sure if it made a difference in the texture or the flavor of the cookie, but mine tasted great so at least it doesn't hurt anything.



Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tbsp whipping cream
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup minced white chocolate
3/4 cup dried strawberries, coarsely minced

Preheat oven to 325. Stack two baking sheets together and line top sheet with parchment paper.

In a food processor, whiz sugar to finely pulverize, about 10 seconds.

In a mixer bowl, cream sugar and butter on low speed until well blended. Then add flour, vanilla, cream, and salt and blend well. When almost blended into a dough, add white chocolate and dried strawberries mixing by hand to incorporate and make a firm dough.

Knead dough gently on a lightly floured surface about 1 minute to make dough more firm and get it to hold together. Flatten dough into a disk, wrap well, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roll out gently about 1/2 inch thick and cut into small round cookies, about 2 inches in diameter.

Place on prepared baking sheets. Place in oven and immediately reduce oven temp to 300. Bake until lightly browned around edges about 40 to 50 minutes. Cool well before removing with a metal spatula.