Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies – Food Blogger Cookie Swap

There’s nothing better than a good chocolate chip cookie, but no one wants to eat the same old chocolate chip cookie all the time. I’ve always had a love of coconut – as a kid I would sometimes eat it right out of the bag if my mom had some laying around in the house. I’m also a big fan of Mounds candy, so I thought adding coconut to the chocolate chip cookie would be a no-brainer.

Original Recipe Ingredients (yields about 15 cookies):

• 1/2 cup of shortening
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 cup of all-purpose flour
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup bitter sweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup unsweetened coconut

Procedure: Beat together sugar and shortening. Add egg and vanilla. Incorporate dry ingredients. Mix in chocolate chips and coconut. Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 11-13 minutes.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across some mention of The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap…

SOLD!

I didn’t need to know anything more before deciding to participate. It’s run by the lovely ladies from Love and Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen. The concept is simple and amazing – send three different bloggers a dozen cookies each, and you’ll get three dozen cookies sent to you in return. So far I’ve gotten delicious packages from Kid Eats and Raevyn’s Nest (I’m still missing one box unfortunately…). In making my own cookies to send, I may or may not have waited until the night before the shipment deadline to buy ingredients and bake my cookies. One thing I’ve learned is that my new local grocery store in Astoria doesn’t have the same foods as the one near my old apartment in Williamsburg. Exhibit A: It didn’t have the bittersweet chocolate chips I was looking for. Exhibit B: I substituted the sweetened coconut for unsweetened coconut. These are concessions I was okay with making. Another change I made was to use butter instead of vegetable shortening. In the middle of making the cookies, I realized that I didn’t buy enough chocolate chips! So unfortunately the resulting cookies didn’t have as much chocolatey goodness as they should have, but the result is still tasty.

Modified Recipe Ingredients (yields about 4 dozen cookie):

• 3 sticks of butter
• 2 1/4 cups of brown sugar
• 3 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 3 cups of all purpose flour
• 3 pinches of salt
• 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups of sweetened coconut

Procedure: Beat together sugar and butter. Add egg and vanilla. Incorporate dry ingredients. Mix in chocolate chips and coconut. Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 11-13 minutes (the cooking time depends on whether you want a soft and chewy or a crispier cookie).