This feels like the summer of strawberry everything! From Lirika Matoshi’s Strawberry Dress to Gen Z discovering bugs living in their strawberries on TikTok, this fruit has been top of mind for all of us on the Internet lately. When I was thinking of desserts to include in the PASALUBONG treat box, I instantly gravitated towards polvoron. Polvoron is a crumbly Filipino shortbread cookie made with toasted flour. Granted, I’ve never made it before but I turned to my favorite bakery chain that does: Goldilocks! Pinay Plate has a whole treasure trove of Goldilocks recipes that are taken from their recipe book.
I toyed with the idea of adding freeze-dried strawberries to the mix after realizing how well their tartness balances with the buttery flavor of the cookie. The biggest challenge for making this polvoron was finding the perfect tool to mold them with. It’s extremely difficult to find polvoron molders in the States. At first, I tried using a moon cake molder but the mixture got stuck and wouldn’t come out in one piece. Then, I looked through my tools at home and found my Wilton Strawberry Plunger Cutter, which is traditionally used for making shapes out of pie or cookie dough. Its thickness works perfectly for pushing out each polvoron cookie and it doesn’t hurt that it’s super cute.
I love this recipe because you don’t have to use your oven at all to make it work, and it’s so easy to whip up! I think there are limitless possibilities with the kinds of polvoron you can come up with, and not having the OG molder shouldn’t get in your way of your polvoron creations.
Strawberry Polvoron
Ingredients
- 1 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup whole milk powder
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 ¼ cups unsalted butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 oz freeze-dried strawberries, ground to a powder in food processor
Instructions
- Toast the flour in a frying pan over low-medium heat, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon until light brown in color. (Approximately 10-12 min, you should be able to smell it as it toasts!)
- Transfer the toasted flour to a large mixing bowl. Add the rest of the dry ingredients, including the freeze-dried strawberries, and mix together. Set aside.
- Melt the butter in separate bowl. You can use a microwave or heat it up in a saucepan.
- Add the melted butter into the bowl with the dry ingredients then mix until it's incorporated. Add the vanilla extract and mix.
- Form desired polvoron shapes by packing the warm mixture (about 2 tablespoons each) into the polvoron molder.
- Cool in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes or until firm.
- *Optional: Wrap polvoron with cellophane.
