You Need This Yogurt Cookie
Cookies can cause a lot of tension when you suggest changing a traditional recipe. Well, things get awkward. I made cookies with a yogurt cup with cherry fruit on the bottom and I liked it. To be honest, I prefer it to other cookies. I fully understand that some family recipes are great and that for some people this recipe will be the only cookie. But this biscuit recipe is better.
I rarely need to have a warm biscuit. This treat is soothing, buttery and goes great with whole foods or plain jams. Cookies require very few basic ingredients—butter, flour, salt, baking powder, and usually buttermilk—while you can make cookies without buttermilk, I find adding moisture makes the bread more delicious.
Unfortunately, I rarely keep buttermilk on hand for my half-moon cookie cravings. But what I always have is yogurt. I have several disposable 5.3 ounce fruit flavored yogurt cups, as well as a giant jar of plain Greek yogurt for numerous culinary uses. Yogurt is great for making dipping sauces, salad dressings, as a cool condiment for savory dishes, and if you dilute it with a little milk, it makes a reasonable substitute for buttermilk. If you’re looking for other products to make up for your lack of buttermilk, Bob’s Red Mill has a good breakdown here .
I wanted to make a small batch of cookies quickly and didn’t want to mess with diluting the yogurt (the fewer steps between soft cookies in my mitts, the better). I used to gravitate toward plain yogurt, but the idea of a fruity cookie changed everything.
This biscuit recipe uses the usual method of mixing lumps of butter and flour, but instead of playing chemist and mixing vinegar and milk and wondering if it’s thick enough, you just pour a glass of yogurt into one serving. The most exciting part is deciding which flavored cookie you want—peach, cherry, coconut, lemon, strawberry banana—there are just as many options as there are in the dairy section.
The trick to this cookie is to cut the butter into flat pieces and trust the amount of yogurt. Be careful. After adding yogurt, it’s easy to think, “Oh boy, this needs milk, it’s too dry,” but don’t be tempted. Adding liquid to the mixture will make the cookies tough.
Halfway through adding the yogurt, you dump the fluffy mixture onto the table and finish kneading it there. As soon as you take it in your hands, you will realize that additional moisture is not required. Stick to the plan, and your reward will be a smooth, buttery cookie with a fruity aftertaste.
I chose cherry yogurt and already know peach is next on my cookie list. Feel free to use a plain yogurt cup if you want a more traditional cookie. On the other hand, if you want more fruit flavor, mix in a handful of chopped cherries or any other fruit you have in your yogurt cup.
How to make yogurt cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 cup and 2 tablespoons (5.7 oz) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- A scant ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 oz (6 tablespoons) butter (cold)
- 1 serving (5.3 oz) cup flavored or plain yogurt (I used Chobani Cherry Greek Yogurt)
- Egg yolk for washing eggs (optional)
Preheat oven to 400°F. Baking line with parchment paper. Move the baking rack to the center position in the oven.
Add dry ingredients to a medium bowl and mix with a fork. Add the butter to the dry mixture in thin pieces, two to three pieces per tablespoon are sufficient. Dust the butter with flour so that the pieces are individually coated. Pinch off pieces of butter to flatten and fall apart. Keep pinching and tossing the butter into the flour until your largest pieces are about the size of a nickel. The mixture will look crumbly. If your kitchen is hot, you can put the bowl in the freezer for a few minutes while you stir the fruit in the bottom of the yogurt bowl.
Empty the yogurt cup into the butter and flour mixture. Stir and tamp with a rubber spatula until most of the flour is combined. Pour the mixture onto the table to knead the remaining flour. Be quick but careful, take the stickier clumps and press them into the already existing dry clumps. Roll the dough into one ball.
Transfer the dough to a baking sheet lined with parchment. Roll out the dough with your fingertips into a squat oval shape about ¾ inch high. This recipe will make four 2-inch round cookies. For soft sides and a taller biscuit, bake circles with trimmings . Scrub the tops with eggs if you like a shiny golden brown finish. Bake at 400°F for 15-20 minutes. Enjoy them warm from the oven with salted butter.