Berry Crinkle Cookies

Happy Valentine's Day! I know, I know, Valentine's Day is the business-industries' ploy of bumping up the consumer markets and blah, blah, blah. Well, I think it's a day where smelling pretty flowers and eating lots of chocolate is completely acceptable. Guess it just depends on how you look at things.

Especially being sick at home, I needed some cheering up on such a supposedly joyous day. So I got into my thinking seat: the couch, under my self-knitted blanket, watching trash on Netflix, and scouring the internet. I remembered Adrianna from A Cozy Kitchen had these scrumptious looking berry crinkle cookies. And you all know me, I have a stock pile of freeze-dried berries in my kitchen cabinet. So I donned my gloves and face mask (have to keep my sicko germs to myself) and got to baking.

You all are absolutely going to love how easy these are to make. Also who doesn't love strawberries? The recipe as follows is exactly from A Cozy Kitchen, check her out! I almost wonder what these would be like if I added in some lemon zest. Might need to redo this recipe with that additive... Enjoy!

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INGREDIENTS:

• 3/4 cup white granulated sugar

• 1 1/2 cup freeze-dried strawberries or raspberries (or a combo of the both)

• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

• 1/2 cup neutral oil (vegetable oil)

• 2 large eggs

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• 1 drop fuschia food coloring gel, optional

• 4 drops red food coloring gel, optional

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with a sheet of parchment and set aside.

2. To a blender, add the sugar and freeze-dried strawberries/raspberries (if using a combination of the two). Blend until the freeze-dried berries are ground up, a few teeny bits of freeze-dried strawberries are ok.

3. To the medium bowl, add the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk together until combined.

4. To the bowl of a stand-up mixer (or you could use a large bowl with an electric- hand mixer), add the sugar/strawberry mixture and oil. Beat until light and sort of fluffy, about 1 minute. With the machine running on low speed, add one egg at a time. And then add the vanilla extract, fuchsia food coloring gel and red food coloring gel. Mix until combined.

5. Add the flour mixture and mix just until no flour speckles appear and the dough is cohesive, about 30 seconds to a minute.

6. Sift the powdered sugar into a small to medium bowl. This will smooth out any pesky lumps that are in the powdered sugar.

7. Using a cookie scoop, scoop out balls of dough, rolling them in between your palms until balls form. Roll them in the sifted powdered sugar.

8. The powdered sugar should be on there pretty thick. I think it’s our instinct to brush off the excess powdered sugar but leave it on! Transfer the dough ball to the lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough, spacing the cookies about 2 inches a part. They don’t spread very much so you can fit about 8 per baking sheet.

9. Transfer the first baking sheet to the oven to bake for about 10 to 12 minutes, until they appear crackily and puffed up. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheets for at least 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. You’ll notice that they’ll fall a bit as they cool—this is good! Serve with milk or coffee.