Delicious brown sugar rhubarb cookies bursting with little bits of tart rhubarb in every plush bite!
With all of the dozens of rhubarb recipes that have come out of the Great Island kitchen over the years, there has only ever been one other rhubarb cookie (roasted rhubarb baci di dama) ~ until now! And it’s high time: these unique soft batch brown sugar cookies loaded with diced rhubarb are amazing. They’re easy to throw together and share with all your rhubarb loving friends this spring.
What you’ll need for a batch of rhubarb cookies
Rhubarb cookies are the perfect project if you’ve got just a couple of stalks in your possession, maybe leftover from a rhubarb crisp or a small batch of rhubarb butter.
- rhubarb
- fresh rhubarb sliced and diced into small bits about the size of chocolate chips or raisins.
- butter
- brown sugar
- brown sugar gives these cookies flavor and keeps them moist.
- egg
- flour
- baking soda and salt
- vanilla
- don’t skip the vanilla, the combination with rhubarb is the best!
rhubarb cookies method
- Just like regular chocolate chip cookies you’ll cream butter and sugar, then beat in an egg. Once combined you’ll fold in the dry ingredients but then, instead of chocolate chips you’ll fold in diced rhubarb.
- Scoop out the dough and roll round in your palms. Bake until puffed and dry on top, but note they will not be browned and they will still be quite soft.
- Immediately after taking the cookies out of the oven rap the baking tray sharply on a hard surface. This will deflate the puffed cookies a bit.
rhubarb cookie questions
No, I don’t recommend it for this recipe. Frozen rhubarb will be too wet, and you need to chop it finely for these cookies, which you can’t do with thawed rhubarb.
Sure, I think white chocolate would be especially nice.
I think pecans, walnuts, or sliced almonds would work well..
You can’t make a crunchy rhubarb cookie, the moisture in the fruit softens the texture. Adding nuts will increase the crunch factor.
You can swap almond extract for the vanilla. You can add cinnamon or cardamom. I think some grated fresh ginger would be amazing in rhubarb cookies.
what makes a cookie soft?
The short answer is moisture, and many factors can influence the moisture content of a cookie. These rhubarb cookies are made with brown sugar which contains molasses. And the rhubarb itself releases moisture into the cookies, keeping them soft.
More soft style cookie recipes
- Soft Sugar Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies
- Lemon Fluffies
- Copycat Crumbl Banana Bread Cookies
- Paste di Mandorla ~ Sicilian Almond Paste Cookies
- Red Velvet Cookies
- Soft Glazed Gingerbread Cookies
- Soft Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies
Rhubarb Cookies
Equipment
- medium cookie scoop buy here
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 large egg, room temperature if possible
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/4 cups finely chopped rhubarb (about 1/4 inch dice.)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Cream the soft butter with the brown sugar until light and fluffy, scraping down the bowl as necessary.
- Beat in the egg and vanilla, and scrape down the bowl again.
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt, to combine and fold into the wet ingredients. When the flour is almost fully incorporated, go ahead and fold in the chopped rhubarb.
- I use a 1 7/8 cookie scoop to scoop up the dough, and then roll it in my hands to make a round ball. Place on your cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes (I bake one tray at a time for even baking.) The cookies will be puffy and pale, but should look dry on top.
- Immediately after pulling the cookies out of the oven, give the pan a sharp wrap on a hard surface. This will deflate the cookies a bit.
- Let cool on the pan a few minutes and then move to a rack.
- The cookies are best the day they are made. Store leftovers on the counter, either uncovered or loosely covered with foil. Freeze for longer storage.
Notes
- Be sure your oven is at the correct temperature. An inexpensive oven thermometer is a good investment, I look at mine every time I’m about to put something into the oven. It saves a lot of frustration.
- Measure your flour accurately. The easiest way to do this is to fluff the flour first, and then scoop it and lightly level off with your finger.
- The easiest way to make sure cookies are of uniform size, and therefore cook evenly, is to use a cookie scoop. I have them in several sizes, and used my 1 7/8 inch scoop for these cookies.
- Invest in decent (not necessarily expensive) cookie pans, like these.
These cookies are incredible! Soft, chewy, and just the right balance of sweet and tart. I used fresh garden rhubarb and followed the recipe exactly — my whole family loved them. Definitely adding this to my summer baking list
The cookies were delicious. Thought they were going to be flat and crispy, instead, they were fat and fluffy. They didn’t spread out and I got almost 3 dozen.