I have been known for my love of eating my drink! You must have seen this and this! (< These are must try! They are simply loved by friends and family and most viewed recipe on my blog till date!!)
So now I want to take a plunge and start drinking my cookies! 😉 Who is with me on this?
When you incorporate a drink in baked goods, the flavor gets enhanced and intensifies. In my opinion cupcakes/cakes are more forgiving in a way you can play with liquid as the consistency of batter is not much of a concern. While it is trickier to be able to incorporate a drink in cookie-dough as it has to be just right, not overly runny or sticky else it goes straight in to the trash.
I am a very guarded person.. I hate disasters in the kitchen more than any other person. Just can not handle them. I know it is part-and-parcel of the game but non-salvageable disasters just make me crazy! Yup.. still dealing with my failed attempt at Mountain Dew cookies.. But I have not lost on them yet! I am sure I’ll come up with a winner recipe 🙂
Hence for this second drink-cookies expedition, being an overly-cautious person that I am, I decided to use cake-mix. They are just convenient and I could focus on the liquid~cake-mix ratio completely rather than focusing on flour-sugar ratio first. These were success at first attempt so I will be more confident while baking my next Pina-colada cookies from scratch. I will definitely update the recipe when it happens in future but till then enjoy these cake-mix cookies as they were the best cake-mix cookies I have baked so far and I have baked many!!
The batter comes together easily. In one bowl. With a spoon. No mixer required.
We are using cake-mix which virtually guarantees a success! They are soft, fluffy and yet chewy.
These are studded with the bits of dried pineapple and glazed cherries. And when we are talking Pina-colada how can we miss coconut so in goes shredded desiccated coconut. Feel free to add rum and adjust the liquid ratio accordingly if you are in cocktail-cookie mode!
These are perfect holiday cookies. I haven’t been able to take vacation this summer but drinking these cookies definitely felt like sipping a drink on a beach. So go ahead and bake these golden nuggets of sunshine to brighten up you day!
Pina~Colada Cake-Mix Cookies
Yields: 2-dozen regular-sized cookies or 1-dozen large cookies (Needless to say I baked mine large)
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
- 3 and 1/2 Tbsp Pina-colada squash/cocktail-mix
- 250 gm Vanilla cake-mix (I used Pillsbury)
- 3-4 Tbsp all-purpose flour (or less)
- 1/2 heaping cup grated desiccated coconut
- 1/4 cup finely chopped dried pineapple
- 1/4 cup finely chopped glazed cherries (dried cherries or cranberries would work too)
*If want boozy cookies, add 1 Tbsp rum and reduce Pina-colada squash/cocktail-mix ratio to 2 and 1/2 Tbsp.
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC / 350ºF. Line baking sheet with a parchment paper. In a large bowl, combine butter and Pina-colada squash/cocktail mix and stir by hand or with an electric mixer till combined.
- Add the cake-mix and stir until the batter is smooth. Add the flour one spoon at a time, as needed to solidify the dough. Add as little as possible to get chewy cookies. Adding more flour will make it cakey so add little-by-little.
- Fold in the coconut, pineapple and cherries and put the mixing bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes. Do not skip this step as chilled dough spreads less during baking.
- Using a Tablespoon or ice-cream scoop, drop 1-inch dough-balls on prepared cookie-sheet, allowing for adequate spacing. These cookies do not spread much and retain its puffier shape. Bake for 10 minutes or until cookies are barely browned on the bottom. The tops will look undone but they will continue to set on the cookie-sheet even after out of the oven. They will firm up as they cool so do not over-bake. Allow the cookies to cool on cookie sheet before attempting to move them. Store them in an air-tight container for up to a week at room-temperature.
