Homemade Smurfberry Cookies

The other day while we were out driving in the woods, we came across this very rare Smurfberry bush. We pulled over and smurfed a small basket full of the ripe berries. Sure Smurfberries are delicious to eat just by themselves, and of course we made some yummy Sarsaparilla with a handful of the berries but I was looking for something a little extra special to smurf. So I went up in the attic and dug out my great great grandmother's Smurf recipe book that she had discovered in her backyard among a patch of mushrooms....during World War I?!?

Anysmurf...the fact is Saturday we had a rare occasion where we had two social gatherings to go to so I decided to get a little creative and whip up some Smurfberry Cookies, since I can't stop talking about Smurfs. I had looked up a few Smurf cookie recipes online but they were all way too complicated so I just created my own. You can make these too. Here's what you'll need:

• 3/4 cup butter (softened)


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1 1/2 cup flour


• 1 tsp. vanilla flavor


• blue food coloring


• Pomegranate Craisins


• Smurfs Breakfast Cereal
  

This recipe is simple to smurf. First, smurf the butter and sugar together and then add the vanilla. Then start to mix in the flour while adding dabs of blue food coloring. You'll want to wait till your mixture is mostly white before adding the coloring or you'll be adding blue to the buttery yellow and it won't look right.

While the mixture is forming into dough, sprinkle in the Craisins. I suppose you could use any ol' berry or fruit for this recipe. I went with Pomegranate Craisins because it's a flavor most people wouldn't identify right away and Smurfberries should taste unique and not just like blueberries or what have you. (I'm smurfing a story with these cookies people!)

While kneeding the dough, continue to add in as many Craisins as you wish and drops of food coloring. I added the blue coloring a little at a time because I didn't want the shade of the cookies to be too dark. I ended up adding enough so that the dough wasn't entirely blue, there were some swirls of white in there as well. I liked this look as it actually helps sell the visual idea of the blue and white design of the Smurfs.

Then at the last minute I had the idea to add a coating of Smurfs Cereal to the top of the cookies. Pour a little bit of cereal into a bowl, then when you roll small balls of dough for the cookies press them down into the cereal to pick up a few for a little crunchy blue and white coating on top.

Make sure your balls of dough are pretty flat to begin with. The dough didn't expand out as some recipes do and the second batch of cookies came out much better and cookie like than the first batch which is pictured above. Bake the cookies on a greased cookie sheet for 8 1/2 minutes at 375 degrees.

When they are done, let them cool for a smurf bit and then you'll have yourself a Smurfalicious Batch of Homemade Smurfberry Cookies. I think the Craisins did a good job as far as looking like a Smurfberry baked into a cookie and the light blue color swirled with the white evokes images of the Smurfs. The Smurf cereal on top is just a nice unique touch and another way to work the Smurfs into the cookies.

I made two containers of the cookies to take to our two parties. I also added in a bed of blue and red Stauffer's Smurf Crackers which are kind of hard to find in stores...so I went to their factory in York, PA and bought some directly from them. (Is that sad?) (That was a separate adventure and nothing to necessarily do with my homemade project.)