Pine pollen cookies are great, spruce tree cookies are great. But spruce tree and pine pollen, together, make a super great cookie! Here's how I make Spruce Tree and Pine Pollen Cookies.
These cookies are a such a good way to appreciate any spruce trees or pine trees near you! These cookies are so simple to make! There's no eggs, baking soda, or baking powder - just flour, sugar, butter, pine pollen, and spruce needles soaked in water. Here's how I do it.
Step 1: Harvest the tender new growth on spruce trees and pollen from pine trees. Depending on the weather, and which spruce and pine trees are around, you might get the pollen or the new growth first. It doesn't matter. You can keep either one in the freezer!
I already made posts that show how to Harvest Pine Pollen and Young Spruce Tree Needles. Just click on those links to see them.
Step 2: Soak the spruce needles in water, out in the sun, for 6-8 hours. You can see that the needles have changed color. Don't throw out the water! It's great for making Spruce Tree Sorbet! I'll write an article on how to do that real soon, so stay tuned!
For the cookies, drain the water and chop the soft spruce needles into tiny bits.
Step 3: Get to baking some cookies. The amount of butter, sugar, and flour are flexible, but it's all based on how much pine pollen you have. I don't want just a little bit of pie pollen and spruce needles hidden in a standard cookie. I want to taste those great wild ingredients!
For this batch of cookies, I only had about 1/4 cup of pollen left. So the recipe goes like this:
- Cream together 2 Tablespoons of butter and 2 Tablespoons of sugar.
- Stir in 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup flour.
- Stir in 1/4 cup of pine pollen.
- Stir in all those finely chopped spruce needles, about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup.
- Add only enough spruce water to get a nice cookie dough consistency -it doesn't take much at all.
The dough is just right for drop cookies with about 1 Tablespoon of dough for each cookie, on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake them at about 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 12-15 minutes. That's it!
Step 4: Get to eating some good cookies! Any sugar cookie or butter cookie recipe would work well for Spruce Tree and Pine Pollen Cookies. Just leave out the vanilla, cinnamon, or other spices to allow the flavor of the spruce tree and pine pollen to come through. Don't be timid about using enough pollen or spruce needles!
If you want to see how to put all this into action, with more details, here's my video on how to eat spruce trees:
What Do You Think?
I hope you get a chance to make Spruce Tree and Pine Pollen Cookies! If you do, I would really like to know about it! Put @haphazard-hstead in your post so I'll be notified and use the #foraging tag so all the Steemit foragers can find it!
- Have you ever eaten pine pollen or spruce needles?
- Would you eat my pine pollen and spruce tree cookies?
- Do you have any pine trees or spruce trees near you?
I write about foraging because I believe that we can all have lives that are richer, more secure, more grounded, and more interesting by getting to know the plants and the land around us – in our yards, our parks, and our wilderness.
I would like Steemit to be the premier site for Foraging on the Internet! If you have any thoughts about foraging, or experiences to share, write a post and be sure to use the Foraging tag. And check out the @foraging-trail to see curated quality posts about foraging. Happy Foraging!
Plant List
- Spruce trees: Genus Picea, Pine family (Pineaceae)
- Pine trees: Genus Pinus, Pine family (Pinaceae)
** Haphazard Homestead **
