Pink Grapefruit Ginger Cream Cookies
It has been a week since I last posted, which is longer than I like. I am sorry about that. Still, as I mentioned before, things have been busy around here lately. I’ll have some exciting news for you in a few weeks. While it’s very hard for me to keep my mouth shut about this one, I can’t make the announcement quite yet.
This is my slightly belated entry to Sugar High Friday #28: Sweet Seduction.
I asked my partner if he would consider himself seduced by these cookies, which I actually made just because I had a spare grapefruit in the fridge that I didn’t want to let go to waste. He doesn’t much like sugar cookies or grapefruit in general, but he declared these cookies “surprisingly inoffensive”. That counts as a seduction by the cookies, under the circumstances!
Me, I’m seduced by pink grapefruit juice every morning. It’s the only thing that really gets me up and ready to start my day.
Pink Grapefruit Ginger Cream Cookies
(adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe)
For the dough
Grated zest of 1 pink grapefruit
1/4 C freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice
1 C sugar
2 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp teaspoon salt
1/2 C unsalted butter
2 large egg yolks
For the cream filling
1/2 C unsalted butter
2 C confectioners’ sugar
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp freshly grated ginger
3 tbsp freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice
Preheat your oven to 350°.
In a small bowl, combine zest with 1 tbsp sugar, and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt, and set that aside.
Beat butter and remaining sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, and beat until combined. Beat in the zest-sugar mixture. Beat in the flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the juice.
Separate the dough into two equal parts, and shape each into a 1″ thick disk. Wrap each in plastic wrap, and refrigerate them until firm, at least 30 minutes.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out each disk in turn to 1/8″ thick. Cut out cookies of whatever shape you like, and place them 1/2″ apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake, rotating sheet (from top to bottom and from front to back) halfway through, until edges are golden, about 14 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack, and allow them to cool completely.
Make the filling by beating the butter and sugar together until, again, light and fluffy. Beat in the grated ginger and honey. Add the juice 1 tbsp at a time, only so much as you need for the filling to become properly creamy.
Spread about 1 tbsp filling onto the bottoms of half the cookies. Gently sandwich with remaining cookies, since the filling can be pretty oozy. Store in the fridge.
I use orange zest and lemon zest in lots of things, but rarely, if ever, grapefruit. These cookies have made me want to make some sort of grapefruit muffin…
I really love red grapefruit. Grapefruit and ginger sound wonderful together. Have to keep this in mind and see where it leads.
I love a good mystery…
These looks delicious, definitely gonna try! Glad that your back, missed ya!
I adore red grapefruits! I made a wonderful lemon curd bar earlier this year, where I substituted red grapefruit for the lemon juice and lemon zest. Just fab!
Those look really delicious!
Grapefruit and ginger sounds like a great name for a food blog. Lovely cookies.
Mmm, yummy! These look adorable. I can imagine biting into one….
As for your exciting news- ooh! Are you pregnant?! (That is my guess because I have baby brain, as everyone around me is announcing pregnancies.) Hehe. Totally random and probably 100% wrong guess :)
Grapefruit is not my favourite citrus fruit, but I’ll try anything when it’s part of a cream filling. Thanks for the chuckle. The “surprisingly inoffensive” reaction is priceless.
Brilynn – A grapefruit muffin sounds brilliant. Now I want one, too.
Tanna – I won’t keep you in suspense for too long! Just another few weeks, at most.
Meena – Thanks! It’s great to be back.
nex0s – Mm, those bars sound wonderful. I made grapefruit almond curd a while back, with a fun grainy texture that I really love.
Kristen – Thanks!
Susan – You’re right. Someone should create and write it!
Yvo – Eep! No, I’m not pregnant.
Rob – Yep. My boy, he is a silly one.
I love the idea of grapefruit, it does have a different taste to the other citrus fruit that isn’t used very often! I like the combo with the ginger too.
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This has become my most favorite cookie recipe – they are adored and requested by my friends! I’ve modified it a little – I add a few drops of food coloring to play up the ‘pink’ and I’ve added a lot more ginger to the filling.
Finally, I use a metal shot glass to cut out the cookies – we’ve found that small, bite-sized versions of these are best.
Thanks for such a great recipe!!
Very nice. I, too, made them bite-size. Next time I’ll try the extra ginger that Jess suggested since I like it a lot. Hubby loved them but I felt they were a bit too sweet for me, especially the filling. Do you know of any modifications to the filling so that I can add, say, half the sugar and still have the right consistency?
Thanks for the recipes (especially the cardamom almond pepper cookies)