Monday, July 11, 2011

Coconut M&M Cookies

Coconut M&M Cookies-on napkin

I've never hated coconut, but if you'd asked me if I liked it, I would have wrinkled my nose and said, "No, not really. It's mostly a texture thing." While that hasn't completely changed, I will say that I'm kind of in love with coconut, at least in the right form.

I made this German Chocolate Cake for Dwight's birthday and swooned. Dwight said it was the best GCC he's ever had. Aw, what a guy.

Toasted coconut is a new favorite, too. I learned the bliss that is toasted coconut when I made "7 layer bars" for the first time just a few months ago and couldn't stop eating the leftover toasty bits of pecans, graham crackers and coconut in the baking pan.

Then I made that coconut bread. You know the one. This one. Browned butter, vanilla bean, coconut. Did I mention browned butter? All together in one heavenly bread. Aw, yeah. The new-found joy of coconut continued.

And when I just had to make cookies because it had been too darn long since I'd made any, I decided to use, say it with me... coconut. I'd recently read about a chocolate chip cookie that uses browned butter and I knew I needed to try it. It worked so well with the bread, why not cookies. So I modified the basic Toll House recipe, browned the butter and added coconut M&Ms instead of chocolate chips along with coconut and vanilla bean.

coconut M&Ms package
*Contains no actual coconut. Heh. 


Coconut M&M Cookies-scoop
*Contains just the right amount of coconut. Mmmm.


Coconut M&M Cookies-size

Ding ding ding! We have another winner. The love affair continues...

Coconut M&M Cookies
loosely adapted from Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe

Ingredients
1 Cup (2 sticks) Butter, browned
1 vanilla bean, scraped reserving pod

2-3/4 Cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup coconut, packed

3/4 Cup brown sugar, packed
2/3 Cup granulated sugar
2 eggs

To make browned butter:
Place butter in small sauce pan over medium-low heat. Melt, stirring periodically. Once it's melted, continue stirring. The butter will get foamy - keep stirring. Once the foam goes away, you'll notice that it's gotten very clear with some solids at the bottom. Keep stirring! You don't want those to burn. You want the butter to start to turn a very light brown color and you'll definitely start noticing the amazing, nutty aroma. Let the solids at the bottom turn light brown then remove from heat. Let cool about 5 minutes, then drop the cleaned out vanilla pot into the butter. Do this too soon and you'll have fried vanilla bean — trust me — so wait the 5 minutes. The hot butter will draw the rest of the vanilla goodness from the scraped bean. 


Let this cool about 15-20 minutes in bowl of stand mixer or mixing bowl. Add vanilla beans.

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Whisk flour, soda, salt and cinnamon in medium bowl. Stir in coconut. Set aside.

Add both sugars to butter and mix until completely combined. It will be sludgy. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly between each and scrape down sides of bowl. Mixture should be noticeably lighter in color and texture.

Add flour mixture to butter mixture beating until full incorporated. You can mix in the M&Ms now or place them individually on the tops before baking.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. I used my large pampered chef scoop which is a scant 1/4 cup. You can make them any size you wish.

Place about 2 inches apart on sheet. (They will spread quite a bit.) Flatten and place M&Ms close together if adding them now.

Coconut M&M Cookies-candy placement

Bake 9-11 minutes until light golden brown. (My were perfect at exactly 10 minutes.) They'll spread then puff up then turn golden. Don't over bake. Leave on pan 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

You can eliminate the M&Ms altogether and just have a coconut cookie. They're excellent plain.

Enjoy!

6 comments:

  1. Those cookies are huge! I'll take four please, and that's just for me! I do like coconut too now that I am all grown up. Will be making chocolate chip cookies and rice krispie treats for a catering gig this Friday and will be browning the butter for both. So I am with you, browned butter all the way!!

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  2. I just made these for a get-together and they are amazing! I don't know whether to thank you or curse you for introducing me to browned butter. ;-) Keep up the fantastic work - I think your blog is fabulous!

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  3. Robin- I know! They're gigantic. :) That way you can tell yourself, "well, I only had ONE cookie, so I can probably have just one more." Heh.

    Kim,
    I'm SO glad you made them, like them and let me know! I love hearing when people try the recipes. And thank you so much for the nice compliments. It made my day! {welcome to the wonderful world of browned butter. :) }

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  4. What a great idea!! How cute are these?! I've never heard of coconut M&M's before but these are a must try! LOVE your blog too and so glad to be your newest follower! xoxo

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  5. Thank you, Kelly! I really appreciate your nice comments and for the follow. I'm a fan of yours as well, and look forward to seeing your posts in my RSS feed! Plus, I just LOVE your name. ;)

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  6. What an incredible looking cookie! I've tried those m&m's and I was in heaven. Made a cookie out of it and you've won me over! :-) Yum!!!!

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