Neapolitan Cookies

I remember the first time I had any sort of freeze dried fruit. It was an orange segment decorating the top of a decadent, flourless, chocolate cake. I was blown away by how light and airy the orange piece was. It seemed to dissolve in my mouth so quickly, almost like cotton candy, but the flavour was so bright and intense. Since then, I’ve been wanting to try experimenting with freeze dried fruits, but have had difficulty finding any locally.

A while ago, my friend made a trip to Trader Joe’s in the States and brought me back a bag each of freeze dried blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. Earlier this week, I was in the mood to make some cookies and was looking online for some inspiration. I came across a recipe for Neapolitan Cookies that uses jam to flavour the strawberry layer. I wondered whether freeze dried strawberries would work instead, so I decided to test it out.

I was really pleased with how they turned out. Even Collin declared these to be his new favourite cookie. Each of the flavours individually are quite prominent on their own, and together, they really do taste just like neapolitan ice cream!

The dough is quick to assemble. The most time consuming part is pressing all the layers together for the different flavours, but even that doesn’t take long.

Start by whisking together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl, then set it aside.

You’ll also want to prepare prepare the freeze-dried strawberries by pulverizing them in the blender or a food processor until finely ground.

You need 1/3 of a cup, measured after they’re ground up, not before. (This ended up being nearly the whole 34g bag that I was using.) Once you’ve ground up your strawberries, set them aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on high speed until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs and the vanilla extract and beat until combined. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed so everything gets well incorporated.

Add the dry ingredients to your butter mixture, and mix until just combined. The dough will be fairly sticky, which is expected.

Remove the dough from the bowl, and divide it into 3 equal portions. You want one for each flavour – vanilla, strawberry and chocolate.

Take one portion of dough, and put it back in the mixing bowl. Add the freeze dried strawberries and some almond extract. Mix until just combined. Remove the dough from the bowl and set it aside.

Take another portion of dough to the mixer, and add the melted chocolate and cocoa powder. Mix until just combined.

Now you have all three flavours of your dough mixed up, you can start layering them!

Line a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving enough paper so it overhangs the edges. You’ll use these as handles later on to lift the dough out of the pan.

My loaf pan has quite a steep angle to the sides (the bottom is quite a bit narrower than the top), so I ended up using a tupperware container instead that was more squared off on the sides.

Take your strawberry dough, and place it into the bottom of the pan first. Press the dough out into an even layer so it covers the bottom of the pan. I found I was able to get a really flat layer by pressing the dough down with the bottom of my largest measuring cup. You could use something else with a flat bottom as well, like a cup or a glass.

Next, take your vanilla dough, and press it into an even layer on top of the strawberry.

Lastly, repeat the process with your chocolate dough. You’ll now have a loaf pan (or in my case, tupperware container) filled with 3 layers of dough. Tightly wrap the pan with a piece of plastic wrap, and chill it in the fridge until firm (about 3 hours, or 1 hour in the freezer).

Once the dough is chilled, pre-heat your oven to 350°F. Line two cookie trays with parchment paper and set aside.

Lift your block of dough out of the pan using your handy parchment paper handles.

Using a sharp knife, cut the dough lengthwise down the middle so that you have two 2.5 x 9 inch rectangles.

Cut each rectangle into slices, about 1/2 inch thick.

Place the cookie slices onto your parchment lined trays, and bake for 11-13 minutes until the edges are just barely golden brown.

Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and allow them to cool completely before serving.

I would make these again in a heartbeat. The dough recipe takes minimal time to prepare, and I love the end result with the various coloured stripes. The freeze dried strawberries are so flavourful, and bring a beautiful, naturally pink hue to the dough, so you don’t need to add any food colouring either.

The only problem now is locating a good freeze dried strawberries source…I’m going to have to start making regular trips over the border now to stock up!

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