Raspberry and white chocolate cornflake cookies

This is my birthday post!  Finally, we get to my actual birthday, and Mr P. and I are away in freezing cold Granite Belt country.  Yay!  Hopefully it will snow.  I know I've said it before, but people just do not believe it sometimes snows in sunny Queensland.  Even Queenslanders tend not to believe it, but I assure you it does.

Admittedly it's on the border country with New South Wales (you should see the funny contours of the border), but boy does it get cold.  Officially the coldest town in Queensland!  Long-time readers will remember my story of getting lost here, and planning how we would keep warm overnight when it snowed on our (almost) petrol-less car!  Thank heavens we made it to Tenterfield (in NSW) where we found a petrol station!

so delicious - crispy, fruity and chocolatey

(Recipe from Some of my best friends are Cookies by Emelia Jackson - she of Masterchef Australia fame.  Soooo many recipes I want to make from this book!)

Makes 12 (or 13):

ingredients:

220g./8 oz plain flour

1/2 tsp bi-carb (baking) soda

1/2 tsp baking powder 

1/4 tsp sea salt flakes

150g./5.5 oz butter, softened (not melted)  Emelia says to use unsalted, but no!  that's the devil's work :=)

125g./4.5 oz brown sugar

100g./3.5 oz caster sugar

1 large egg, at room temp.

2 tsp vanilla bean paste  (or extract if you don't have the paste)

40g./1.5 oz shredded coconut

25g./1 oz cornflakes

125g./4.5 oz fresh raspberries

255g./9 oz white chocolate chips

15g./0.5 oz freeze-dried raspberries  (optional - as if!)  see Notes

bi-carb (aka baking) soda

Method:

Heat your oven to 180C/355F fan forced

Grab 2 baking trays and line 'em with baking paper

Into a medium bowl, tip the flour, bi-carb, baking powder and salt

Give them a good stir and a thorough whisking

Now get hold of your electric handbeaters (or a mixer with the paddle attachment, says Emelia), and cream the butter and sugars together till fluffy

Then add the egg and vanilla paste, and give it another good whizz

Add the flour mixture, and combine firmly but gently - you know what I mean? :=)

In go the coconut, cornflakes, raspberries and 180g./6 oz of the white chocolate drops, and fold them in; not too roughly

Weigh out 75g./2.5 oz blobs of the mixture  (Emelia says 12, but I got 13, so I ended up making my 12 blobs a bit bigger)

No need to shape them I found, just drop them onto the trays, leaving lots of room for each one, as they spread themselves out like a sunbather on a lounge chair

Bake for 20-22 minutes, till golden around the edges, and still soft and blonde towards the centre (says Emelia)

Take them out, and gently press the other 75g./2.7 oz of white chocolate drops into the tops of the biscuits/cookies

Then crumble the freeze-dried fruit (use whatever berry you fancy) over the tops

Cool completely on the trays, and hide from hungry husbands if you want to have some around for a bit

Will keep for a few days in an airtight container  (hahaha - as if)

Notes:

I could only get freeze-dried strawberries, and they worked out fine!  Tho' I did have to throw them into my mini food-processor for a bit, as they were jolly hard; too hard to crumble by hand

gather those ingredients

and beat that butter with the sugars

looking creamy

now mix in the other ingredients

plop 'em (75g. each remember) onto your lined trays

these took 21 minutes

press in the choc drops, and crumble over the berry bits

and let 'em cool right down

oh yes, get ready to be devoured little (actually big) biscuits!

white chocolate - but you know it's not really chocolate :=)

raspberries!