Sea Salt Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies with Pink Pitaya Yogurt Frosting
Alrighty then. Here I go with back to back Valentine’s Day inspired posts and recipes. I’m such a sucker for hearts and flowers with good reason.
Wanna know why?
I’m truly married to the sweetest guy ever. He is my love, my life and my everything. Yesterday he had knee surgery and what did he do first thing in the morning? Drove downtown to his favourite flower shop, picked out the most beautiful bunch of soft pink roses and then proceeded to leave them in his car (in the freezing cold for 7 hours). When we arrived back from the hospital he remembered that he left them there. OMG.
Not to worry, both Steve and the flowers survived the day and they are both safely in the house recovering (one from surgery, the other from frostbite).
Let’s talk about these cookies for a sec. I have baked a bajillion sugar cookies in my lifetime but these were not only delicious, they were also stupid easy to make.
Best part? No waiting for butter to soften. No waiting for cream cheese to soften. No waiting for eggs to come to room temperature. NO WAITING translates to FAST COOKIES and FAST COOKIES translates to…I can stuff them into my face sooner. WIN WIN.
What I loved about this recipe was it was totally versatile. You can make them with so many different flavour extracts to give them a bit of a twist. I tried adding almond extract to these and think I may have been a little too heavy handed but that is the name of the game with recipe testing. I adjusted the extract amounts in the recipe below and you can feel free to throw in whatever your heart desires.
These cookies baked up so nicely but there are a couple of tips I’m going to give you before you make them.
- Make sure all your ingredients are cold. I know this is usually the opposite of most cookie recipes but trust me on this one. It’s important to have them at this temperature so you don’t need to refrigerate the dough.
- Don’t over mix your dough. I tend to do all the time and it’s not a good thing. The more you mix this dough, the more you risk a cookie that spreads. This recipe, when done correctly will give you perfect cookies that won’t spread into each other. In fact, I put them dangerously close to one another because I was too lazy to line another baking sheet and guess what? I didn’t end up with ONE GIANT cookie after they were baked. Oh ya, that’s happened to me more than I would like to admit.
- Don’t over bake these cookies. There’s always a temptation of browning a cookie but not with these. You want a pale colour on the top and a golden brown on the underneath. They might just look undercooked but they are not.
- Roll the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. This is very important with the baking time for these cookies. You don’t want to have a thin cookie AND you don’t want to have a thick cookie. Think “3 Little Bears” syndrome. Make them JUST RIGHT.
- Completely cool these cookies before frosting. Unless of course you want your frosting to melt and slide off your cookie. Right? Didn’t think so. I made mine the night before and frosted them in the morning. Zing!
I think you are just about ready to attempt these and once you make them I know you will love the way they look and taste.
Be still my heart. These truly are simply beautiful. (With the exception of the sloppy doppy frosting job I did). Happy V Day!
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold
- 4 oz full fat cream cheese
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon other flavoured extract (you can use almond, cinnamon, lemon or anything you wish)
- 2¾ cups all-purpose flour, sifted
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- FROSTING
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ⅓ cup full fat plain yogurt or sour cream (just make sure it's full fat)
- 2½ cups confectioners sugar
- pinch of sea salt
- optional - pink pitaya powder to make the ombre effect on the cookies (you can also use food colouring)
- Garnish - sprinkles
- Preheat the oven to 375F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Place the butter, cream cheese, and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on medium-low speed until smooth - about a minute.
- Add the egg yolk, both extracts and mix on medium speed until combined - about 30 seconds.
- Add the flour, cornstarch, and sea salt.
- Mix on medium-low speed until a stiff dough forms - about on minute.
- Place the dough onto a piece of parchment paper. Take another piece of parchment and place it on top of the dough. Roll the dough to ¼-inch thick in between the parchment. This step makes for a very easy cleanup.
- Remove the top piece of parchment, and cut shapes with any shaped cookie cutter.I used two different sizes of heart shaped ones here.
- Peel the shapes from the bottom layer of parchment, and place on the prepared baking sheets. Roll scraps of dough again and repeat process.
- Bake for 12 to 16 minutes, or until just beginning to turn golden brown on the bottoms.
- Cool completely, then frost.
- To make Pink Pitaya frosting:
- Place the butter, yogurt or sour cream, confectioners sugar, and sea salt in a large mixing bowl and whip on medium speed until smooth.
- To save time and clean up, I frosted a few cookies with the white first, then gradually added my pitaya powder to the frosting to deepen the colours until I reached the darkest pink one. I used the same bowl and didn't have to divide it.
Follow
Follow
