TURN CLASSIC AMBROSIA INTO COOKIES FIT FOR THE GODS

In Saving Southern Recipes, Southern Kitchen’s Kate Williams explores the deep heritage of Southern cooking through the lens of passeddown, old family recipes.

There are few classic Southern dishes more contentious than ambrosia. Mention it around my mother and she’ll cringe; her idea of the salad is marshmallow, gelatin and mayonnaiseladen, a strange and sweet concoction that is far from her notion that it’s “food of the gods.”

Of course, plenty other Southerners take pride in their version of the dish, whether it be made with sweetness dialed up to 11, or toned down and citrus-heavy. But whatever ambrosia is in your mind, it’s hard to argue with the dish when its ingredients are transformed into cookies.

Reader Rafa Santos introduced me to the idea of ambrosia cookies earlier this spring. He said his grandmother used to make the cookies, but he had been unable to locate a recipe. From his memory, they were chock full of mix-ins: shredded coconut, chopped dates and raisins, chopped cherries and rolled oats.

A quick Google search revealed dozens of ambrosia cookie recipes, as varied as the recipes for the original salad. Some were coconut-heavy macaroons, while others, with an oatmeal cookie base, sounded more like what Santos remembered.

I started with a basic, brown sugar oatmeal raisin cookie and then added a litany of ingredients. I liked the idea of including cherries, but wanted to stay away from the sticky-sweet maraschino types. I also was able to find unsweetened coconut, which I prefer. Dried pineapple was a natural fit, and I also added a small amount of chopped dates to match Santos’s memory. A generous amount of both lemon and orange zest keep the cookies strongly in ambrosia territory.

Ultimately, however, these cookie mix-ins are up to you. Aim to add about 3 cups of fruit and nuts, in addition to the coconut, to maintain the character of the original dish.

Do you have a beloved family recipe to share? Send a picture of the recipe card or a typed-out version of the recipe to kate@ southernkitchen.com.