There are two recipes with freeze-dried strawberries that I’ve had on my radar for years and have always wanted to try. Weirdly, I see freeze-dried fruit everywhere in the states (Target & Trader Joe’s) but have never come across it here. Heather and I did a little cross-border shopping this month, and I picked up a bunch of packages, and I knew right away what I wanted to make first.

I love the concept of these cookies, that replicate the flavour profile of Neapolitan ice cream: strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. I love how they look visually, and I was excited to see how the flavours would come through now that I had freeze-dried strawberries in my possession.

The dough is super easy to pull together, even splitting it into three portions and adding the strawberry and cocoa components. The time consuming part comes in rolling all the dough into equal size balls, and forming them together, but I found this to be really meditative (as I listened to Renaissance for the first time!).

I am absolutely obsessed with how these cookies turned out in both taste and appearance. They’re soft and chewy and the distinct flavours come through really well. Next time I would try adding a bit more strawberry powder to amp up that flavour, and also add some vanilla bean paste to that section to make it a little more flavourful. Just one final note that I noticed that the chocolate portion of the cookies didn’t spread as much as the strawberry and vanilla portions, so I used this trick to shape the cookies so they were more round once they came out of the oven.

Hummingbird High also has a recipe for Pumpkin Neapolitan Cookies, so that’s going on the Fall baking agenda for sure!

Neapolitan Cookies

Source: Sarah Kieffer via Hummingbird High

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup (8 g) freeze-dried strawberries
  • 1 cup butter, room temperature
  • 1 3/4 cups (350 g) sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 2 1/2 cups plus 1 tbsp (364 g) flour
  • 3/4 tsp baking soda
  • 3/4 tsp kosher salt
  • 3 drops pink or red food colouring
  • 2 tbsp cocoa powder

+ sugar for rolling

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  2. Use a food processor to grind the freeze-dried strawberries into a fine powder. I sifted mine through a fine-mesh sieve after grinding just to remove any larger pieces that didn’t break down.
  3. In a big bowl, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
  4. Add the egg and egg yolk, one at a time, until fully incorporated, then mix in the vanilla.
  5. Add the flour, baking soda and salt and mix in until just combined.
  6. Divide the dough into three equal portions (weighing about 333 g each) in medium bowls.
  7. Add the strawberries to one bowl with a bit of pink or red food colouring, and mix until fully combined. Add the cocoa powder to another bowl and mix until fully combined.
  8. Portion each of the three doughs (strawberry, chocolate and plain/vanilla) into equal size pieces (as best you can – a cookie dough scoop helps here) and roll into balls.
  9. To form the cookies, take a strawberry, chocolate and vanilla ball and press them gently together (think of a peace sign) and into a rounded shape. Roll the cookie dough balls in sugar.
  10. Place cookies at least 3″ apart on the cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes until the edges have set but the centres are still gooey (I baked mine for closer to 13 minutes).