Summer should be a time to slow down, savor the flavors and scents of this glorious, sun-drenched season. But busy-ness seems to know no boundaries. When the world is “too much with us,” when we have that dreaded early-morning meeting, when we have to get dinner on despite our exhaustion at the end of the workday, when the chickens must be fed, when the cows must be milked, when the world will not stop turning, maybe we should…. just sit for a minute and eat a cookie. Amazing how that changes things.
Cookies are a favorite food of mine. Yours too? Huh. But there are cookies and then there are COOKIES. I’m not much for junk food—not when there is so much authentic food around. And I’m certainly not big on “from-the-package” eating. So a simple-to-make, actually nutritious, homemade cookie is a “real” treat. And here’s one that is sure to please, featuring strawberries (but not the rhubarb) from my visit to Biver Farm. It will become one of your favorites too, I think, even when you’re too busy to cook. Your little market sprouts will certainly thank you.
Ingredients
- One-half cup unsalted butter, softened
- One-half cup brown sugar
- One-half cup coconut sugar
- Two eggs
- One tablespoon vanilla
- One teaspoon lemon zest
- Two-thirds cup whole wheat pastry flour (or white flour if you prefer)
- One-third cup coconut flour
- Two cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- One-half teaspoon baking powder
- One-quarter teaspoon baking soda
- One-quarter teaspoon fine sea salt
- One cup diced and frozen fresh strawberries
- One-half cup fine-chopped pecans
- One cup sifted powdered sugar
- Four tablespoons heavy cream (or more depending on the consistency you want)
- One teaspoon coconut extract (or vanilla, if you prefer)
Instructions
- Dice your strawberries and arrange them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and stick them in the freezer. Give them at least an hour in the freezer to become partially frozen.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, sea salt and lemon zest. Set aside.
- Using a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy and well blended.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Scrap the sides of the bowl and the beaters as necessary. Add the vanilla.
- By tablespoons, add the flour mixture with the machine running on low. Make sure the flours incorporate completely.
- Take the bowl off the stand mixer and fold in the oats, followed by the pecans. Take the frozen strawberries from the freezer and fold them into the cookie batter.
- Drop by tablespoons onto parchment-lined cookie sheets, spacing about an inch apart. The cookie dough is very cold because of the frozen strawberries, so this will keep them from spreading. It will also take them longer to bake. In my oven, each batch took a full 15 minutes, so rotate your cookie sheet at about seven minutes and check doneness at 12. They should start to look brown on the edges. Do not let them bake longer than 17 minutes or they may become dry. I kept my batter cold in the frig between batches.
- Once baked, let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for about two to three minutes to firm up. Then, transfer them to cooling racks with a spatula. Once fully cooled, you can frost them. Whisk your heavy cream and coconut extract into your sifted powdered sugar and top cookies with tablespoons of the frosting. Let the frosting set up (if you can wait) before serving.
Using parchment paper will make cleanup a breeze. Keep the cookie dough chilled and you will avoid unwanted spreading as they bake.
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