Winter has landed in Montana. Despite the current temperature of 48 degrees and the melting snow, winter is very present. Wild forgeable plants are sparse this time of year, so I’ve been tossing around ideas (with self-employed self) on how I can bring a little liveliness to baking and cooking this season. Sure, I have an abundance of dried plants at my disposal and a little herb shop down the road from my apartment, but what can I do to make winter EXCITING?! And the first thing that came to me, was pine.

Pine is delicious and easy to wildcraft. The tips (which are harvested in spring) are known for their vitamin C content and delicate, citrusy flavor. While the more mature needles aren’t as popular as the younger tips, there is still so much flavor to be found within them.

When foraging pine, it’s important to know what you’re looking for. THIS short guide from Grow Forage Cook Ferment is helpful and I always recommend you get yourself a good guidebook. Clip the ends of the branches with a pair of scissors and never take more than you need. Also, avoid taking branches from sapling trees - look for the bigger ones! Clean pine needles by gently running under water then pat dry. When cooking or baking with pine, you’ll want to remove the needles from the stems before adding to your food.

These cookies seemed like so much fun, especially with the added bonus of colorful sprinkles. They are buttery, sweet and have a light citrus flavor due to the pine.

Ingredients

3 cups flour
1 1/4 cups raw sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 sticks (1 cup) salted butter
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 heaping tablespoon pine needles, finely chopped
1 teaspoon green matcha powder
1 egg
1/2 cup Sprinkles

Method

Place butter, sugar, baking powder and finely chopped pine needles in a mixing bowl. Using a hand mixer, blend well. Once blended, add egg and continue to mix until light and a little bit fluffy. Divide mixture in half (you can eye ball this or use a scale) and place in two separate bowls. In one bowl, add matcha and begin to slowly mix in 1 1/2 cups flour. Mix until matcha and flour is fully blended and dough can be formed into one large ball with your hands. Repeat process with the other half of your mixture (sans matcha).

Cover dough balls with plastic wrap and place in freezer for 10 minutes to firm them up. Once firm, remove from freezer and place dough on wax paper. Form dough into a square shape and begin to flatten it with a rolling pin. Roll out until dough is at least 1 1/2 inches thick and place a second sheet of wax paper on top of the dough. Continue to roll the dough out until is is 1/4 inch thick and 10-12 inches wide. Repeat process with second ball of dough.

Place sheets of dough in fridge for 15 minutes to firm up again. (The dough warms up fast!) Remove from fridge and peel wax paper off one side of each dough sheet. Carefully line the dough sheets and sandwich them together - one on top of the other. Remove top layer of wax paper and carefully begin rolling the dough into a tight log. Reuse wax paper to wrap the log and place in fridge for 1 hour.

After an hour, take log out of the fridge, unwrap and divide into two logs (this makes the log a little easier to handle). Dump sprinkles out onto a clean baking sheet and roll log over the sprinkles, applying enough pressure for the sprinkles to become embedded in the dough. Once the sprinkles are applied, rewrap the logs and return to fridge for another hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350ºF and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove log from fridge and cut into 1/2 inch coins. Place cookies on baking sheets, 1 inch apart. Bake for 12 minutes. Let cookies cook completely before eating all of them.

Dough can be stored in fridge for up to 3 days and longer in the freezer.