Roze koeken are very popular at Dutch highschool as a snack after (or instead of) a lunchbox full of sandwiches. The pink glaze on top of store-bought roze koeken looks and tastes a bit chemical, and it is. But that doesn’t stop my countrymen from loving them and eating lots of them.
Because it is Pride week in Amsterdam, the GLBT network at the office thought it would be nice to treat our co-workers to some pink glazed cookies (roze koeken or glacés in Dutch). The usual store-bought roze koeken are full of so-called “E-numbers”, EU-approved food additives. I thought it would be nice to treat my co-workers to home baked roze koeken from natural ingredients instead. My co-workers agreed, and they were gone very quickly.
They are quite easy to make. The base is very similar to that of pound cake, but the baking powder should be left out as we want to bake cookies, not muffins. For the glaze I made an egg white-based “royal” glaze and colored it with raspberries (instead of red food coloring, carmine, which is made from insects). This also gives the glaze a nice raspberry flavor.
Ingredients
For 12 cookies
100 grams (2/3 cup) cake flour
100 grams (7 Tbsp) butter, at room temperature
100 grams (1/2 cup) sugar
2 eggs
zest of 1 lemon
pinch of salt
butter and flour for greasing and flouring the tin
For the royal glaze (this makes enough for about 20 cookies)
1 egg white
about 200 grams icing sugar (about 2 cups)
4 raspberries
Preparation
Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F (fan forced).
Mix 100 grams butter with 100 grams sugar in a food processor…
…until creamy.
Add the grated zest of 1 lemon, and process to incorporate.
Add one egg, process until incorporated, and then add another egg…
…and process until incorporated. You may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Add 100 grams of sifted flour and a pinch of salt.
Pulse and scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary…
…until the flour has been incorporated. Do not over mix.
Butter 12 muffin tins…
…and cover them with flour as well.
Divide the batter amongst the muffin tins.
Bake at 160°C/320°F (fan forced) until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. The cookies should not rise and should not brown (a little golden is nice though).
Allow them to cool briefly…
…then take them out of the tin to cool completely on a rack.
To make the glaze, put an egg white in a bowl. (I put it in the bowl of my stand mixer, but I soon realised that whisking by hand was a lot easier.)
Put 4 raspberries in a sieve and squash them and push down with a spoon to add the juice to the egg white.
Whisk the raspberry juice into the egg white.
Add 200 grams of sifted icing sugar.
Whisk to incorporate. The mixture should become quite thick. Add more icing sugar if needed.
Use a spoon to put some glaze on each cookie, and spread it out with the back of the spoon. If the glaze runs off the cookies, it is too thin and you need to add more icing sugar.
Allow the glaze to dry and harden, which takes about 8 hours. (My glaze was a little on the thin side, but some drips can be decorative. You could even say you did it that way on purpose.)
Once the glaze has hardened, store in an airtight container. If you want to stack them, but a sheet of baking paper in between.
Flashback
Pork burgers mixed with pickled chipotles and stuffed with cheese. A recipe from Richard McGary that is loaded with flavor and that I prepare regularly because it is so good.
Stefan's Gourmet Blog 
Sono stupendi questi dolci!
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Grazie, Simona. E questa volta con ingredienti reperibilissimi 🙂
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Hai ragione!
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I don’t see any chemicals in your recipe? It looks fine to me, except for the overdose on sugar 🙂 – which can hardly be helped in baking. And the pork burgers look fab (we love pork instead of beef – cheaper, too),
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The chemicals are only in the store-bought version. That’s what’s nice about my homemade version. I clarified that now in the post — thanks 🙂
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Ohhh. Now it makes sense :). Your recipe looks very nice. And I don’t find the sugar excessive, given there are 12 cookies :). OOPS – except for the icing. I’d have to make mine with cream cheese instead, maybe a nice chevre…
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Icing always has lots of icing sugar. What’s in a name…
The sugar-free icing/frosting recipes I’ve seen, contain a lot of fat instead. So that’s not a big improvement in terms of diet.
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Those are wonderful and I love that you used raspberry for the color in the glaze.
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Deliziosi e facili da fare. La glassa ha un colore bellissimo e naturale.
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These cookies look so pretty. Pound cake cookies is my kind of cookies. 🙂
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Ewww, I didn’t know insects were used in red food dye. I always knew the red dye was not good to use, but didn’t know why. However, my daughter would absolutely love your pink-glazed cookies! I should show her the recipe. She has me buy the store-bought ones (although different from your version) all the time. I never eat them. I’ll tell her about the insects, that would probably change her mind, lol!
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Hope you won’t mind my hankering after Richard’s pork burgers rather than those pretty pink things . . . .
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These Roze Koeken look so tempting, I bet they are delicious! 🙂
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These are beautiful 🙂 My cousin just had a baby girl yesterday and these would be a nice treat for her. Love the idea of using raspberries for a natural food coloring too 🙂
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These would be ideal to celebrate a baby girl. It would be more difficult to find blue natural food coloring for a baby boy.
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I have no idea what could be used for natural blue that would taste good and actually look “blue”. What would you use?
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I have no idea either. Despite their name, I think blueberries would end up purple
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Stefan, they look great and a fantastic way to celebrate Pride. On a different note, what brand is your food processor. I have a pea soup disaster on my mind and feel I need to upgrade…
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A beautiful way of celebrating Pride Week with your colleagues Stefan! I know that I would love these!
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