Strawberry Shortcake Cookies (Or: Almost a Kitchen Fail)

Sometimes things just fall flat.

Pancakes. TV screens. Chests. Cookies.

Sometimes you get wrapped up listening to your Stevie Wonder station on Pandora, and you’re twirling around in your new apron, and you’re licking cookie batter from your fingers, thinking that these cookies are going to turn out great, but maybe you should add something else. Maybe white chocolate chips? And more cream, definitely more cream, because the creamier the better right? Sometimes you get wrapped up in things like that, you forget that there is a reason why people say that baking is an exact science. Because even if you’ve modified many recipes in the past, sometimes – sometimes – it just doesn’t work.

And you end up with flat cookies.

But!

While these cookies may be flat (and really, they’re not even that flat – just not as round and crumbly as the original recipe should’ve created), they still taste marvelous.

They started out great – with luscious, juicy, sweet sweet strawberries, hanging out in a mixture of lemon juice and lemon zest-infused sugar.

Rubbing lemon zest into sugar releases its oil, and in turn you end up with this beautiful smelling citrus sugar. Remember this the next time you are making a margarita or a martini, and use this lemon zest-infused sugar to rim your cocktail glass. Or if you just want to dip strawberries right into this and go to town, I’m not judging.

Back to these strawberry shortcake cookies. See, they actually are pretty lovely, with the summery flavors of strawberries and cream, and the hint of lemon freshness. And I swear it’s not just me who think that they’re lovely. I gave these to my friend Tyler while we were watching The Hunger Games, and by the time Peeta was waving to the crowds at the Capitol, half a dozen of these babies were already gone. So while they look like a kitchen fail, they taste like a kitchen win.

I did not end up with a crumbly, buttery, biscuit-like cookie, but these cookies were very cake-like (flatcakes?) and definitely reminded me of strawberry shortcake, but with the added sweetness from the white chocolate chips. Could I have done without the white chocolate? Of course. But you know me.

The original recipe is from Martha Stewart. The changes that I made were the following:

– Instead of using plain sugar, I used lemon zest-infused sugar (I highly recommend doing this)

– I added about half a cup of white chocolate chips (also recommended). Or you can try sweetened coconut flakes instead, which I actually did with half of the batch, but those cookies ended up flat too. Or you can follow the recipe as is…

– I kept adding more cream till the dough felt really sticky (I DO NOT recommend this. Just follow Martha’s instructions, not my example)

– I also may have overbaked my batch of cookies. Eep.

Hey, I’m the one who urged you all to not be too hard on yourself when things don’t go as planned. Because it happens. Sometimes cookies fall flat. And get burnt around the edges. And they don’t end up looking quite like what you expected them to be.

But they’re still soft. And lovely. And worth it.

Kinda like relationships. But that’s a whole different story.

(Family, don’t get too excited. I’m still single.)

   

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