White Chocolate & Raspberry Dipped Cookies

You might remember back in May I told you I had been interviewed all about this blog and baking for a podcast on Podium.me. Well, today is the start of a new 3-part podcast series with me over on Podium, called ‘Lucy’s Recipes’ where I bake and chat through a different recipe each week. I am super excited about it, I really enjoyed recording it and it was a really fun new challenge. These white chocolate and raspberry cookies are the first recipe in the series and were a big hit in my house!As well as talking through the recipe for these cookies on this weeks podcast, I also chat about my future plans now that I have finished school. I haven’t mentioned them on here before as I was waiting until everything was confirmed and I had solid plans to announce. But since exams results day was yesterday here in the UK I can finally be sure of exactly what I’m doing for the next four years. At the start of October, I am starting cookery school! I know it will be a massive challenge going from a fairly relaxed Sixth Form schedule at school to an intense year of learning everything there is to know about food but I am so excited! In case you are interested, I will be doing this Leiths Professional Diploma for a year. After that, I will be starting a History degree at Cambridge in October 2014. This blog will of course keep going and I’m hoping to be able to write posts about my time at Leiths and updates on cookery school as well as my normal content, if people would be interested? Now, back to the cookies!This is my fourth white chocolate cookie on my blog and they are always super popular but I wanted to do something slightly different with this version. I adapted a Dorie Greenspan sable recipe, meaning that the cookies are super sandy and buttery. This was the first time I have used freeze dried raspberries and I really liked them – they are super pretty and their burst of intense raspberry flavour helps cut through the richness of the thick layer of white chocolate! At first, I wasn’t sure if these cookies would be too rich but judging by the speed at which the cookie tin emptied I think we managed! You can find the recipe below, and head over to the podcast here to listen to me chat through the recipe and discuss cookery school a bit more. I hope you enjoy!
White Chocolate and Raspberry Dipped Cookies
Ingredients: 225g butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 egg yolks
2 cups plain flour 250g white chocolate, chopped into small chunks freeze dried raspberries
1. Cream the butter and sugars in a stand mixer or with a wooden spoon until really light and fluffy.
2. Add the yolks and salt and mix until combined.
3. Pour in the flour and 100g of the white chocolate and stir until the dough comes together and looks uniform.
4. Shape the dough into a log and wrap in clingfilm and chill for at least 3 hours.
5. Preheat the oven to 180’C. Unwrap your log of cookie dough and slice into 1cm thick cookies. Place on a lined baking tray, leaving 1inch between them.
6. Bake for 15minutes until golden, then let cool.
7. Melt the remaining white chocolate in the microwave (stirring every 30seconds) or in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
8. Dip the cookies halfway into the white chocolate and place on parchment paper. Sprinkle some freeze dried raspberries over the white chocolate and leave to set. Enjoy!