Watermelon cookie recipe

The recipe is pretty simple: Beat two sticks of butter, 1 cup sugar, two eggs, 1 tsp. vanilla and ½ tsp. of coconut extract. I don’t have coconut extract, so I substituted almond. When mixture is light and fluffy, add 3 cups flour, ½ tsp. baking soda and 1 tsp. salt, which you mixed in a separate bowl. Beat until smooth. Spoon out 1 cup of dough and chill it in the fridge.

Add red food coloring to the remaining dough and mix until it’s a watermelonish color. Pack the red dough into the empty can and stick it in the freezer to chill for two hours. I lined the can first with plastic wrap to make it easier to get the dough out later.

After two hours of chilling, put the white dough on a floured board and roll it into a rectangle. Be careful: The dough is surprisingly light and warms up easily. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Get the red dough out of the can in one piece – it helps to remove the bottom of the can and push the dough out – and roll it up in the white dough. Adjust the white dough rectangle as needed to accomplish this. Roll the dough cylinder in a plate covered with about 2 Tbsp. of green decorating sugar. Stand the cylinder on one end and cut it in half so that you have two semi-circles (semi-cylinders?).Put these flat sides down, and cut them into 3/16” thick slices, so they look like watermelon slices. My first batch tended to be closer to ½” thick, which I think worked better in the long run.

Place the cookie slices on your baking tray and press in chocolate chips to look like seeds. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes, depending on how thick the cookies are.