Right before the pandemic occurred my wife was contemplating on going to pastry school. Then it hit so we decided why not go for it. So this week my wife had an assignment to use local products to make cookies or a type of bar. Now I’m a huge spice fan and my greenhouse is full of peppers lemons and pineapples. So I had a great idea to make a pineapple jalapeño cookie. I tried to Google it and could not find one. Not that I could not find one that we liked but like I could not find one period. That’s where we used her schooling and just made up a recipe. They turned out amazing. A sweet fruity cookie with just a little heat perfect for a nice cool fall or winter day. A perfect cookie to go great with that cup of hot chocolate. My 10 year old loves them but my 3 year thinks they are to spicy. But if you love a little bit of spice I promise you, you will love these cookies.

Supplies

200g fresh pineapple
105g butter room temperature
200g brown sugar
25g fresh jalapeño
55g egg room temperature
230g ap flour
6g baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Step 1: Mise En Place

Take the butter and eggs out of the refrigerator. Peel and cut a fresh pineapple, add 3/4 pineapple chunks to a food processor and purée it to a thick applesauce texture, dump it into a fine strainer to separate the juice. Deseed and dice about 7 small jalapeños. Weight out or measure all ingredients.

Step 2: Mixer

Add butter to the mixer and cream butter until white. Add brown sugar and continue creaming until the butter is no longer visible. Add egg and cream until egg is fully incorporated. Add in the sifted dry ingredients and mix throughly, making sure you scrap down the sides of the bowl. Last part of the mixing is to fold in pineapple and jalapeños by hand.

Step 3: Take an Hour Chill

Just as the title says take a hour or more and chill the dough in the refrigerator. This will keep the cookies from spreading. For those that don’t know the most common reason why cookies don’t set up while baking is because the butter is to warm when put into the oven to bake. So take this time to make some hot chocolate and to clean up a little.

Step 4: Baking

Pre heat oven 375. Take the dough out from the refrigerator and start rolling out your cookies. We use a 2oz cookie scoop. But you can make them as big or little as you like. Place them on a cookie sheet that has been covered with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. We will be baking these for about 13 mins. It was 13 mins in our oven but not ever oven is created equally, so adjust as needed.

Step 5: Enjoy With a Cup of Hot Chocolate.

Now if you are like me you will not wait until they are cooled to eat one, so I’m not even going to put in there “take them out and let them cool”. But after they have cooled you may enjoy them with some hot chocolate. I hope that y’all enjoy them as much as I do. If you are really feeling in the jalapeños mood, you can candy the peppers in some of the separated pineapple juice and some sugar. Then add it to the top of the cookies for a bit of a spicer bite.