Secret Recipe Club: White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies

This is my second Secret Recipe Club assignment for this month!  I signed up for Cookie Carnival.  Basically, I was given the blog Making Memories with Your Kids and told to make any cookie recipe, then post about it.  Making Memories with Your Kids is written by a very hardworking mom named Erin.  Her blog is absolutely full of amazing looking recipes and child friendly craft ideas.  She has a lot of great looking cookie recipes, and I chose White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies.  I've always wanted to make this kind of cookie, but couldn't figure out how to do the raspberry part.  Jelly would be too runny and would burn, raspberry flavored chips wouldn't seem right... What to do?  Well, it turns out the secret ingredient is POP TARTS!  Genius, Erin!
 
Anyway, I made these exactly according to the recipe, except I cut back on the salt a little, and had to use semisweet chocolate chips.  I swear this was not intentional.  I thought I had white chocolate chips in the pantry, but did not, and my dough was all ready for the chips, so I simply had to use what I had.  They turned out fine, but I truly believe they would have been best with the white chocolate chips because the semisweet flavor overpowered the raspberry a bit.  Shame!  Sorry, Erin!  I have written the recipe below calling for white chocolate chips, though, and will definitely use those next time.  At some point I would also like to experiment with white chocolate chips, lemon extract, blueberry Pop Tarts, and maybe even adding some oats to the dough.  Regardless, these cookies are a winner for sure!

Erin has so many yummy cookies, I think I'm going to have to make her Candy Cane Pudding Cookies, Marble Cookies, Root Beer Float Cookies, Andes Mint Cookies, Peanut Butter Mallow Cookie Treats, Chocolate Dipped Macaroons, and Snickerdoodles.  I'm actually headed to the kitchen right now to make her Snickerdoodles, and have the ingredients for Chocolate Dipped Macaroons on my grocery list!

White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies
 
1 C butter, softened
3/4 C packed brown sugar
3/4 C white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/4 C flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 C white chocolate chips
pack of 8 Raspberry Pop Tarts (14.7 oz box)

Preheat oven to 375 and line baking sheets with parchment paper.  Cream together butter, sugars, and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs.  In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda.  Stir into butter mixture, then stir in white chocolate chips.  Break up Pop Tarts with your hands and then gently fold them into the cookie dough.

Roll dough into golf ball sized balls and arrange 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.  Bake until cookies are light golden, about 10 minutes.

Yield:  This made 30 for me, you will get more of course if you don't make your cookies as big as mine!

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