Coconut

It was my turn to choose the main ingredient for this week, and from my gi-normous list of possible things to bake I decided upon coconut. As far as I know we haven't made anything with coconut so I was excited to bake something with it. So this week I made Coconut Cranberry Cookies. Pretty funky huh? The recipe that I used is a mishmash of different recipes and I changed it up a bit so basically this recipe is something that I made up. I like my cookies to have three components 1: big; 2: soft; and 3: chewy and these coconut cranberry cookies definitely fulfilled my requirements but if you prefer them crunchy you can always bake them a bit longer.

-Ann

Coconut Cranberry Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup dried cranberries (if cranberries are unavailable then substitute raisins)

1/2 cup shredded coconuts ( I used sweetened coconuts but you can use unsweetened if you desire)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. In a medium bowl mix the shortening, brown sugar, egg and vanilla.

3. Add the flour, baking soda and continue mixing.

4. Fold in dried cranberries and shredded coconuts.

5. Roll tablespoons (I use a regular spoon if you want them big) of dough into balls and flatten them unto baking sheet a few inches apart.

6. Bake for 12-15 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool before devouring them-cause you will!

-------------------------------------~.~.~--------------------------------------------

This week's challenge was to make something with coconut so I've decided to make Coconut Shortbread. This shortbread is amazing! Crunchy with a subtle sweetness that makes you wanna eat the whole batch by yourself. Uh-oh so dangerous.

I adapted this recipe from here. It's supposed to be  Toasted Coconut Shortbread, but I skipped the toasting the coconut part because it's so hot around this parts these days that we use the oven only when extremely necessary. 

Below, you will find the halved recipe. 

-Ana

Coconut Shortbread

Ingredients

1/2 cup (45g) unsweetened desiccated coconut - I used sweetened coconut

3/4 cup (170g) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/3 cup (75g) granulated sugar

1/4 cup (25g) confectioners' sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract - I used essence

1 2/3 cups (185g) all-purpose flour - I used a little more than that

Directions

1. Beat butter and sugars in a large bowl until blended.

2. Mix in salt and vanilla.

3. Beat in flour in 2 additions. I thought my dough was a little soft so I added about 1/4 cup extra flour.

4. Stir in coconut.

5. Gather dough together; divide in half and wrap in plastic wrap. Put in the fridge to chill - about 30 min.

6. Preheat oven to 165ºC. Roll out dough in floured surface and cut into desired shape.

7. Bake for 20 min. or until light golden. Mine took 25-30 min. Cool on baking sheets for 10 min then transfer to racks and let it cool completely. Can be made ahead. Store airtight at room temperature up to 1 week.

8. Drizzle some with melted white-chocolate.

Yields 24.