Mango Sticky Rice Cookies
Makes 24 cookies
Mango Sticky Rice Cookies
From June through August, my body is primarily made up of mangos. Over the summer I relish in the return of these big, juicy golden fruits and spend the other nine months wistfully wishing it were still mango season.
While there's nothing quite like devouring a mango over the sink—you know, juice dripping down your arms and getting all over your shirt—the next best thing is mango sticky rice. But here’s the problem: it’s January and mango season is still months away. That’s why I developed this recipe mango sticky rice cookies that capture the essence of the classic Thai dessert in handheld form, perfect for those mango-less months. Oh, and of course it features a salted coconut glaze—no mango and sticky rice could be complete without it.
The key to getting that mango flavor comes from freeze-dried mangos. Not dried, freeze-dried. The complete lack of moisture from freeze-dried mangos allows their flavor to be easily concentrated into a flavor and flavored into a dough (similar to adding cocoa powder to a chocolate cookie). And after a few tests, I finally found a good way to get a rice flavor to shine through: toasting it (similar to the laab-making process). That powder also gets add to the dough and although this recipe has a few more steps and ingredients than a typical cookie, I promise it’s well worth it.
Ingredients
- 2 sticks (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 3/4 cups white sugar (350g)
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (360g)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt (7g), plus another teaspoon salt (7g) separated
- 1 teaspoon baking soda (7g)
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- 2 egg yolks, at room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
- 1/4 cup dried sweet rice (46g)
- 1/2 cup freeze dried mangos
- 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric (3g) (optional)
- 1/4 cup coconut cream
- 2 cups powdered sugar (265g)
Directions
- With a stand or hand mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and airy, about 2 minutes. Add egg, egg yolks, and coconut extract to the butter-sugar mixture. Mix on medium speed until well combined, about another minute.
- In a separate medium mixing bowl combine flour, salt, and baking soda.
- Add flour mixture to the wet mixture gradually, until just combined.
- Divide the dough roughly in half (there’s no fast and hard way to do this, just eye it).
- Make the sticky rice dough: In a dry sauté pan or skillet and cook the sweet rice over medium-high heat, moving it constantly with spatula (or moving the pan constantly), until a golden-brown color begins to develop. Add it to a mortar and pestle or food processor and pound (or pulse) until ground. Add the powder to one of the two doughs and knead until thoroughly combined.
- Make the mango dough: Add the freeze-dried mangos to a blender or food processor and mix until it turns into a powder. Add the powder to the other dough and knead until thoroughly combined. If you want a more vibrant dough, add the turmeric in this step.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and prepare a baking pan with parchment paper.
- To assemble your cookies, eyeball roughly a tablespoon of each dough mixture and roll them together. Have fun with it! Repeat this process and place on the baking sheet, at least three inches apart (they spread!). I like to press mine down slightly for a cookie with more surface area. If you bake them in a ball, they'll be a bit taller (but equally delicious). Bake for roughly 12 to 14 minutes and let cool.
- Make the frosting: while the cookies cool, combine the coconut cream, powdered sugar, and salt and whisk thoroughly to combine until velvety-smooth. If the mixture is too runny, add a bit more powder sugar until it slightly thickens.
- Once the cookies are cooled (at least thirty minutes) drizzle the cookies with a spoon (or if you're fancy add the frosting to a bottle and drizzle that way!). I did mine in a light zig-zag pattern but the world is your oyster. :)
