Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

Last week, I found myself with a carton of strawberries and a strong urge to bake something yummy with them.  I thought about making strawberry muffins with them but then I remembered seeing a recipe for strawberry cookies on a food blog.  I couldn't remember where I saw this recipe so I did a quick search online and ended up at my friend Jen's blog with her recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Cookies.  I love strawberry shortcake so I was definitely excited about making these cookies!

First, I gathered my ingredients:

• 2 cups strawberries, hulled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (the original recipe calls for 1 teaspoon) 
• 9 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 2/3 cup heavy cream
• Vanilla turbinado sugar, for sprinkling (the original recipe calls for sanding sugar)

I started by hulling and dicing the strawberries.  I put the strawberries in a medium bowl.

I squeezed the lemon juice of one lemon into the bowl of strawberries and also added two tablespoons of granulated sugar.  I mixed these ingredients together and then set the bowl aside.

I then pre-heated the oven to 375 degrees and started to work on my cookie dough.  I whisked together the flour, baking powder, salt and remaining seven tablespoons of granulated sugar in a large bowl.

I cut in the butter with a pastry cutter.  Since I've been baking a lot more lately, I finally invested in a pastry cutter from Williams Sonoma and absolutely love it!

I stirred in the cream, which made a dry crumbly dough.

I then stirred in the strawberry mixture, which gave the dough a loose cookie dough texture.

Using a tablespoon, I dropped the dough onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.  I wasn't sure how large the cookies would spread out while baking so I spaced them pretty far apart and only did twelve cookies per sheet.  I sprinkled the cookies with the vanilla turbinado sugar that my friend Megan kindly lent me - thanks Megan!

The original recipe calls for a twenty-four minute baking time but I cut it down to fifteen minutes since my oven runs pretty hot.  When I took the first batch out, they were a little too dark on the bottom so I shortened the baking time to ten minutes for the other batches.

I cooled the cookies down on a baking rack but I couldn't resist digging into one right away.  The cookies were so soft that they were more like the tops of muffins than a chewy cookie but this only made me like them even more!

This recipe made about three dozen cookies so I sent a lot of them with Bret to work...or else I would have eaten way too many in one sitting!

Do you like strawberries?  I'd love to hear some of your favorite strawberry recipes!

Also, congratulations to Kate at Diethood.com for winning my "Sweet" Signatures Brands Giveaway and thanks to everyone for entering!