Strawberries and Cream Cookies

I made these for the first time yesterday and HOLY COW! So yummy! It was a nice change from a normal chocolate chip cookie, but still nice and sweet. :0)

3/4 c. sugar
1 c. unsalted butter, softened
2 c. flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. whipping cream
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. minced white chocolate
3/4 c. dried strawberries, coarsely minced

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. 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 alsmot 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 work surface about 1 minute to make dough more firm and get it to hold together. Flatten dough into a disk, wrap well, and refrigerate 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 temperature to 300 degrees. Bake until lightly browned around edges, about 40-50 minutes. Cool well before removing with a metal spatula.

Ashlee side note: Ok, so I changed a few things because I am super lazy. :0)
I couldn't find dried strawberries anywhere in town. If you find them...please let me know. The book says you can find them on nutsonline.com, so you can try there.
I bought freeze dried strawberries at Fred Meyer, because that's the best I could find. They are like the kind you find in your cereal box. :0) So, when added to liquid, they reconstitute and become soft. Make sense? Just make sure you dry them well before adding them to the dough and mix extra carefully.
I also did not pulverize the sugar. Does this really make a huge difference? Maybe so, but I couldn't tell the difference and the cookies turned out wicked awesome yummy.
And....I used white chocolate chips instead of mincing white chocolate. :0)
So....as many of you know I am SUPER lazy when it comes to making several trays of cookies. It takes WAY too long. I did the first tray using a glass cup to cut the cookies into circles. But seriously....it took 40 minutes to bake these babies. I wasn't going to sit around for several more hours doing them. :0) So, with the rest of the dough, I made a BIG cookie cake. I used my circle Springform pan and pressed the dough into the bottom of the pan {after spraying with nonstick spray}. It was about 1/4 inch thick. I still placed it on a second baking sheet like the recipe called for, and still baked it for 40 minutes. And honestly....I liked this cookie better. Because this is a shortbread kind of cookie, they are supposed to be crunchy. I prefer soft cookies, and baking the dough into a big cookie meant that the dough was softer. Why? Not a clue. I just cut the cookie into pie slices and ate them. Good stuff.

See? Lazy. But I baked something and these were SO good. Try it! You'll like it!

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

I tried these at 'Death by Chocolate' the last month and they were SOOO good. They even offered everyone the recipe. Like I was going to pass that up! They were my pick for winners. And even though I don't like nuts, these cookies were so scrumptious, I didn't even notice them. :0) The recipe is from Bridgeview Retirement Center here in Twin Falls.

Ingredients:
1 c. softened butter
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/4 c. unsifted flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 pkg. white chocolate chunks
1 jar roughly chopped macadamia nuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream butter, sugars and vanilla together until smooth. Beat egg and then add to sugar mixture. Mix this together and gradually add flour and soda. Stir in chocolate chunks and nuts.
Use a small #40 scoop to drop dough onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes.

Ashlee side note: I usually prefer to bake my cookies at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. They seem to turn out softer that way. I'm a soft cookie gal. :0)