Passion fruit + white choc swirl cookies

These are the kind of cookie that gets the inner child in you excited. The ‘swirl’ effect is created by dividing the cookie dough in half and colouring one, before rolling them back together. These are a soft and chewy ‘Subway’-style cookie, flavoured with freeze-dried passion fruit powder and chunks of creamy white chocolate. One cookie is never enough.

Top Tip - you can ‘scoot’ your cookies to make them perfectly round - as soon as they come out of the oven, take a round glass or cutter with an opening just larger than the cookies, place upside down to enclose the cookie (like capturing an insect), and keeping contact with the baking tray, move the glass in a circle so that it nudges some of the uneven edges of the cookie inwards to form a perfect circle.

hands-on time


25 minutes

1 hour

total time


makes


18 cookies

Ingredients

200g butter, softened to room temperature

200g caster sugar

100g soft brown sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla extract

300g plain white flour

¾ tsp baking soda

¾ tsp baking powder

½ tsp sea salt

200g white chocolate, roughly chopped into 1-2cm chunks

14g freeze-dried passion fruit powder

3 drops yellow gel food colouring

1 small drop red gel food colouring

Method

In a large bowl, with an electric hand or stand mixer, beat the softened butter for 2 minutes until starting to become pale, whipped, and creamy. Add the sugars and beat for 2 minutes until well-mixed and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for a further minute until well-combined. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt. Using a wooden spoon, fold the dry ingredients into the wet and mix to form a soft cookie dough. Add the chopped white chocolate, stirring into the cookie dough until evenly distributed. Divide the mixture into two separate bowls. To one bowl, add the passion fruit powder and food colouring, mixing until well-combined. Take 35g of each dough, and cut each piece in half so you have four pieces of cookie dough. Press the pieces of dough together gently, alternating colours, so they stick to each other but keep their respective colours. Gently roll into a ball, and repeat with the remaining cookie dough. Place the cookie balls on a baking paper-lined tray, ensuring they are not touching, and place in the freezer for 20 minutes until firm to the touch and chilled.

Preheat the oven to 160°C fan-forced (180°C conventional). Line two large oven trays with baking paper. 

Once chilled, arrange 6 balls of cookie dough onto each tray, evenly spaced at least 5cm apart, as they will spread during baking. Bake in the preheated oven for 13-15 minutes, until the edges are crisp and set and the centres are puffed a little. Remove from the oven, and drop the oven tray on the counter so that the cookies crack a little on the tops. If you want to ‘scoot’ your cookies (see headnote above), do so now. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat the baking process with the remaining cookie dough balls, or you can leave these in the freezer in an airtight container for future cookies on demand; you do not need to defrost, just simply bake from frozen.