Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies - December 14, 2009

You'd think with all the baking I've been doing that I would be adding more to this blog but I've been baking so much I haven't had time. I've also been going out almost every night this week so every spare moment is spent in actually baking instead of writing about it. Plus some of the stuff I've been baking I've already posted about. During the frenzied holiday baking season, I don't try out a lot of new recipes in case they don't turn out. Case in point, I tried a new fudge recipe last night and it didn't turn out. Too grainy and didn't have that creamy texture I was going for. I should know better than to try a recipe on the package of the jar of marshmallow cream.

This one is a tried and true recipe - Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies from Baking by Flavor by Lisa Yockelson. I like that it doesn't spread much and stays thick and chewy. I used the Guittard milk chocolate chips for this one as they're bigger than the Nestle tollhouse morsels. I tend to make a lot of cookie doughs ahead of time so I can bake them off at the last-minute when I need them. This is especially crucial when I'm not home much between working and going out. This past week, no matter what time I've gotten home, I've turned my oven on the minute I walk in the door and start pulling cookie dough out of the freezer to get ready for the next day's social events. It's so much easier to get things done when I have stuff prepped ahead of time.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/3 cup quick cooking (not instant) rolled oats
2 cups plus 3 tablespoons unsifted bleached all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ pound (8 tablespoons or 1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cups firmly packed light brown sugar, sieved if lumpy
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to tepid
2 large eggs
2 ¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup sweetened flaked coconut

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line the cookie sheets with cooking parchment paper; set aside. The baking sheets need to be heavy to prevent from the bottoms of the cookies from overbrowning. Double pan the sheets if necessary.
2. Place the rolled oats in a food processor fitted with the steel knife. Cover and process, using the 3-second on-off bursts, until reduced to moderately fine bits, like a coarse-textured powder. Set aside.
3. Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium-size mixing bowl.
4. Cream the softened butter in the large bowl of a freestanding electric mixer on moderately low speed for 2 minutes. Add the light brown sugar and beat for 1 minute. Add the granulated sugar and beat for 1 minute. Blend in the vanilla extract and melted, tepid butter. Blend in the eggs. Remove the mixing bowl from the stand. Mix in the processed oats. Add the whisked flour mixture, chocolate chips and coconut and stir to form a dense but somewhat sticky dough, using a wooden spoon or a flat wooden paddle.
5. Take up generous 3 tablespoon-size mounds of dough and form into rough mounds about 1 ¾” in diameter by 2 inches tall. The height of the mounds is important if the cookies are to bake up pudgy and chewy textured.
6. Place the mounds on the lined cookie sheets, spacing them about 3 inches apart. Place nine mounds of dough on each sheet.
7. Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 13 to 15 minutes, or until softly set, pale golden around the edges and a spotty pale golden on top. The bottoms of the cookies will be light golden-colored. Let the cookies stand on the sheets on cooling racks for 10 minutes, then remove them to sheets of parchment papers, using a wide, offset metal spatula. Cool completely.

Freshly baked, the cookies keep for 2 days.