Recipe: Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Coconut seems to be a bit of divisive flavour: either people hate it, or they love it. Personally, I love coconut, but if you fall in the camp of the despisers, you might not want to try these cookies. If you’re like me, though, and you do love coconut: definitely give these a try! I was a little scared these cookies were going to come out dry, because the dough was quite dry due to the dessicated coconut, but they came out just perfect. Crunchy on the outside, slightly soft on the inside and with a wonderful coconut flavour. I added dark chocolate chips to make sure the cookies wouldn’t be overwhelmingly sweet, but if you’ve got a real sweet tooth, you could definitely use milk chocolate chips too.

I hope everyone’s doing well – for me, March was a bit of a hectic month, but I’m hoping in April things will calm down a little again. It definitely felt nice to bake again this weekend and I’ve also been filming videos and coming up with ideas for future blog posts. It feels good to have space for that in my brain again! I must admit, though, that I’ve been spending most of my free time playing The Sims 4, which has been the perfect form of relaxation.

Now, with that tiny little catch-up out of the way, let’s move onto the recipe!

You’ll need…

• 125 g unsalted butter, softened
• 160 g light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla flavouring
• 200 g plain flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• a pinch of salt
• 100 g dessicated coconut
• 100 g dark chocolate chips
• parchment paper
• baking tray
• and an oven of course! These cookies need to be baked at 180 °C (don’t forget to preheat your oven!)

So, let’s get baking!

1. Mix butter and sugar Put the softened butter and the light brown sugar in a bowl and mix them together until you’ve got a nice creamy consistency. I used a wooden spoon, which worked perfectly for the entire recipe, but you can also use a hand or stand mixer with dough hooks.

2. Add egg and vanilla flavouring Once the butter and sugar are nicely mixed together, add your egg and the teaspoon of vanilla flavouring to the mixture and mix together again.

3. Add the dry ingredients Time to add the dry ingredients. Firstly, add the baking soda, the cornstarch and the salt and mix them all through. Then, sieve the flour about the bowl and also add the dessicated coconut and the chocolate chips. Mix everything together. The dough will end up seeming quite dry, because of the dessicated coconut, and it won’t exactly form a ball of dough. It’s supposed to be like that, though, so don’t worry! The cookies will still come out great.

4. Let the dough rest in the fridge Now, this is going to take some time, because if you want the best flavour for your cookie, it’s best to let the dough rest for at least 5 hours (I usually make the dough in the evening and then bake the cookies the next morning). Just cover your bowl of dough with cling film, and place the bowl in the fridge.

5. Divide dough in balls over baking tray Line your baking tray with parchment paper, and then take out your rested dough from the fridge. Use your hands to form small balls of dough and then flatten them a little bit so they’re more like discs. Because this is quite a dry dough, the cookies won’t spread a lot while baking. That means you can also place them quite close together – but do leave some space between them.

6. Bake! Put your baking tray into the oven and bake the cookies for 13 to 15 minutes at 180 °C. You know cookies are done when they start to turn golden brown around the edges. Also remember that cookies always toughen up when they’re cooling down. Take the tray out of the oven and let the cookies cool on the tray for about 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack (or a plate).

And that’s it! You’ve got your own, delicious coconut and chocolate chip cookies – enjoy!