Category Archives: Baking

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

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For a 4 and 6-year-old, my kids are not what I would classify as “picky eaters”. They don’t like spicy food, trying new things is always a challenge, and 90% of the time they tell me they’d prefer cereal to whatever it is I’m cooking. But my 6-year-old can inhale spring rolls and sushi at an alarming (and expensive) rate, my 4-year-old’s favorite snack is a Cliff bar, they both love fruit, drinking lots of water, and mostly understand that you don’t get a sweet treat unless you’ve eaten some “real food”.

They both love these chocolate zucchini muffins – and what’s better, they KNOW that they have green stuff in them and THEY DON’T EVEN CARE. There are a million recipes for zucchini muffins out there, but they tend to fall into 2 categories for me:

  1. Overly healthified, as in, there’s no way my kids would eat them.
  2. Full of sugar and vegetable oil, which kind of negates the health benefits we’re seeking. Essentially, a chocolate zucchini cupcake.

These are the Goldilocks of muffins for me – not overly sweet, so you feel like you made a healthy choice, but sweet enough that you feel like you’re getting a treat. Win/win.
Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

1.5 lbs zucchini (about 3 standard size)

2 cups flour (can use WW if you don’t mind a denser muffin)

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup sugar

6 TBSP butter (can substitute coconut oil)

2 eggs

1/4 cup sour cream or greek yogurt

1 cup chocolate chips

  1. Preheat to 350°. Grate the zucchini (no need to peel) on a box grater. Place the shredded zucchini into a colander and press on the top with paper towels to soak up excess moisture.
  2. Stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Melt the butter or coconut oil and whisk in the sugar (it’s not much, I do it in a Pyrex measuring cup).
  3. Whisk the eggs into the sugar/butter mixture and fold in the sour cream/yogurt. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until combined. At this point, the batter will seem overly dry, but then add the grated zucchini and the remaining moisture will loosen things up. Stir until combined, then fold in the chocolate chips.
  4. Grease a muffin tin and fill with batter 3/4 full. I usually yield between 16 and 18 muffins. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.

Chocolate Cupcakes

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I don’t have much to say about these cupcakes other than that they’re basically the perfect chocolate cupcake. They’re moist, rich, not lacking in chocolate, and don’t have any weird specialty ingredients. I haven’t made another chocolate cupcake in years because these are, actually, the best.

They’re great topped with a basic buttercream, French buttercream (if you’re a true player), chocolate frosting, cream cheese frosting, or as a hi-hat. They’re the perfect chocolate cupcake base. They DO have coffee in them (divided out it’s a pretty negligible amount), but while I wouldn’t send them to school, I don’t mind if my kids have one.

Chocolate Cupcakes

yields 24 cupcakes

1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee (my Nespresso only makes a bit more than a cup, so I use a strong variety and top it off with hot water).

3/4 cups cocoa powder

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) butter

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

3 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°.
  2. Stir the cocoa powder into the hot coffee until dissolved. Set aside.
  3. Cream the butter and both sugars for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla extract and beat until fully combined. Stir the baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the flour in a small bowl.
  4. Add the flour mixture and coffee mixture to the batter in a few alternating additions. I usually do about 1/3 of the flour, then 1/2 of the coffee, and so on until everything is combined and smooth.
  5. Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full (be careful not to overfill – they will grow) and bake 18-20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely before frosting.

P.S. I used this same batter to make my son’s birthday cake last year – it easily can convert to 2 8″ or 9″ round pans, but you’ll need to bake for quite a bit longer (30-40 minutes).

Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie Cake

Posted in Baking, Dessert, Quick and Easy by

Baking cookies with kids is one of those things that sounds so wonderful when you’re pregnant. You picture yourself with your angel children carefully measuring and pouring ingredients in your well-stocked, immaculate kitchen all while wearing matching aprons with just a little dab of flour on your rosy cheeks. It’s a perfect Martha Stewart moment. You’ll do it every week!  It will be magical! Memories will be made!
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Then you actually have the baby and see how absolutely ridiculous this idea is because you don’t have time to even take a shower by yourself, much less go to the store, get ingredients, bake cookies, and clean up. I’ve always loved baking, but I’m definitely a control freak in the kitchen and just couldn’t see how to involve my kids without making it a miserable experience for all of us. I like baking – it brings me pleasure and relaxes me, so adding my kids to the mix seemed a little ridiculous so I avoided it for a long time.

But baking with your kids really can be awesome if you do it right. First, if you can manage to do it with one kid instead of 2 or 3, it’s much better. Second, I suggest starting when your kitchen is already a mess – because it will definitely be one by the time you’re finished. Finally, young kids don’t have much of an attention span. Make something fast and easy, or only involve them in a small part (trust me on this – if you’re going to make, cut out, bake, frost, and decorate 100 Christmas cookies, spread it out over a few days and only make 20). This skillet cookie cake is one that RG and I make together a lot. It’s one bowl, there’s plenty of fun measuring and pouring to do, you probably have all of the ingredients on hand, it’s forgiving, and it takes about 20 total minutes. No scooping our individual cookies, waiting for anything to rise, frosting – nothing. You mix, pour, and bake. It’s also absolutely heavenly.
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Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie Cake

2 sticks of butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup regular white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons instant espresso or coffee powder

2 cups flour

2 cups chocolate chips (I use 1 cup of bittersweet and 1 cup of semisweet, both ghirardelli)

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°. In a large mixing bowl or bowl of your stand mixer, cream the butter and both sugars together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and eggs one at a time, mixing and scraping the bowl between additions. Mix in the baking soda, espresso powder, and salt until everything is combined and smooth.  Add the flour  one cup at a time, making sure the first is fully incorporated before adding the second. Fold in the chocolate chips.
  2. Grease an 8″ cast iron skillet (I just spray a little vegetable oil on mine) and pour the batter/dough in, using a spatula to smooth out the top. Bake for 35+ minutes, until the middle is set and a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cookie cake cool for 20 minutes, but then serve warm out of the skillet, preferably with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate Strawberry Dipcakes

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When I was little, driving through Dairy Queen on a road trip was one of the finest pleasures known to me. A blizzard lover myself, I long lamented the lack of DQs near my home, but was able to satisfy cravings frequently on weekend trips to our lake house. When my youngest brother was about 2 years old he fell in love with Dip (or is it dipped?  I live in Texas, here it’s just dip) Cones. He would savor it slowly, letting all of the melted chocolate and ice cream cover the entirety of his body, hair, and overalls. It was always a look of pure bliss.

I didn’t know you could apply the dip cone process to cupcakes until a few years ago.  It’s called a “hi hat”and it’s much easier than it looks. It is a 3-step process – baking the cupcakes, making the frosting and piping, then dipping, but it’s worth the process. You could do this with any flavor of cupcake and buttercream, too, but Valentine’s Day kind of lends itself to chocolate covered strawberries. I call them “dipcakes”. When I last made these, I did make the mistake of making mini-cupcakes. You get about 4 mini cupcakes for every 1 regular cupcake, so it sounds awesome in theory, but baking, frosting, and dipping 100+ cupcakes was super annoying.  Half the recipe if you want minis.

Also, let it be known that I finally figured out how to make a degree symbol in wordpress.
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Chocolate Cupcakes

yield 24 regular cupcakes or a million little cupcakes (90+)

1 1/2 cups hot brewed coffee

3/4 cup cocoa powder

12 T (1.5 sticks) butter, softened

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

3/4 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 T vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups AP flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°. In a small bowl, whisk the cocoa powder into the coffee until it is all dissolved and set aside.
  2. In a bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl, cream the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. Add in the eggs one at a time until incorporated, then the vanilla and beat it all together for a minute or two.
  3. Stir the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together. Add the flour mixture and the coffee mixture to the butter mixture about a cup at a time, alternating the two and making sure each addition is fully incorporated and scraped down before adding more.
  4. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake for about 20 minutes (12-14 if you’re making minis), until a toothpick comes out clean.  Allow the cupcakes to completely cool.

 

Strawberry Buttercream

yields approximately 8 cups of frosting – plenty to frost 24 cupcakes.

1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened

1 cup crisco (I buy the foil wrapped packs, it’s one stick)

7-8 cups powdered sugar

1 T vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

1/3 cup milk or cream (up to a 1/2 cup)

1 cup finely diced fresh strawberries

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy – at least 5 minutes. Add in 7 cups of powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, making sure to fully incorporate between additions.  Beat the mixture for another few minutes to fluff it up.
  2. Add in the vanilla and cream and beat the whole mixture for an additional 3-4 minutes until the whole mixture becomes light and fluffy. If the mixture seems too dense, add in a bit more cream, a tablespoon or two at a time, if it seems too runny, add in powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time until you reach your desired consistency.
  3. Pour in the strawberries and beat on high until the strawberries are beaten in, this takes a few minutes on high. Stir to make sure no big strawberry chunks remain and check consistency again.
  4. Frost cupcakes using a wide tip (because the strawberry bits tend to get stuck – I use my biggest round tip). Be generous with frosting and remember that the chocolate hides a lot of imperfections.

 

Chocolate Dip

10 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips (I use the ghirardelli in the brown bag)

1-2 Tbsp vegetable or canola oil

  1. Stick the frosted cupcakes in the freezer for about 10 minutes, heat the chocolate while they cool.
  2. Melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30 second increments (it will burn if you go any longer). I use a pyrex glass 2-cup measuring cup for this. Between each microwave, stir the mixture completely and allow to cool. The chocolate will melt as it sits, so be patient. Stir in 1 T of oil after the first microwaving and add more if the chocolate doesn’t easily ribbon off of the back of a spoon. Once your chocolate is smooth and luscious, get the cupcakes out of the freezer.
  3. One at a time, dip the cupcakes into the chocolate, making sure to twist them a bit on the way out to let the excess chocolate drip off.  I use a toothpick to make sure all areas are covered.  After letting the chocolate run off for a few seconds, let the chocolate cool and harden – this can take about an hour, especially if it’s warm in your kitchen. If you’d like to add sprinkles or gold dust, add that about 5 minutes after you’ve dipped.
  4. Once completely cool and hardened, store the cupcakes at coolish room temperature (the refrigerator does weird things to them, but heat will melt them).

Pizza Dough

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Making dough is definitely in my top 3 favorite cooking tasks (the bottom 3 tasks include cutting raw meat, cutting up whole pineapples, and slicing watermelon).  The rising, punching, and kneading process is so very manual – a job where you really have to just dig in and get your hands dirty.  Some doughs are easier to work with than others and pizza dough is one of the easiest to work with and handle.  It’s easy, there are only 5 ingredients, and it always, always turns out great.

This dough is suitable for calzones, pizza baked in the oven, and, my favorite, grilled pizza.  It’s a relatively small recipe – it would comfortably feed a family of four, but usually for my crew of 6-8 I double it.  You really only need 2 hours start to finish, but if you happen to make it 4 hours ahead of time, that’s fine too (just add another raise).  If you make too much, it’s easy to freeze – just roll it into a ball, coat with a thin layer of olive oil, wrap in plastic wrap, and stick it in a ziploc bag.

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Pizza Dough

1 TBSP yeast

1 TBSP sugar

1.5 cups warm water

1/2 tsp salt

3.5 to 4.5 cups flour

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, stir the water, yeast and sugar together and let sit for about 10 minutes.  When the yeast is bubbly and foamy, stir in the salt and begin adding flour, 1 cup at a time, until combined.  I typically use about 4.5 cups, but depending on humidity you may need less or more.  Once the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl, I add about a half cup more and then let the mixer knead the dough at medium speed for a few minutes, just to make sure all of the flour is incorporated.

2.  Manually form the dough into a ball – if you find it sticking to your hands excessively, consider adding a bit more flour.  Transfer the dough into a greased bowl, cover it, and move it into a warm spot to rise (in the wintertime I turn my oven to warm and then turn it off and allow my dough to proof in there).

3. After 45 minutes to an hour, when the dough has doubled in bulk, punch it down, reform into a ball and allow to rise again.

4. 45 minutes to an hour after the second rise, when the dough has doubled to tripled again, punch it down and roll out to your desired size.  I find that this dough requires ample flouring to avoid sticking to your rolling pin and surface.  You could also freeze the dough at this point.

If you plan to grill your crusts, spray each side with olive oil and place the crust directly on the grill.  Once the first side is done, flip the crust and quickly arrange the sauce, cheese, and toppings to your liking.  Remember that grilled pizza is highly artisanal and traditional aesthetics do not apply.

Reese’s Pieces Cookies on Steroids

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Do people in your life refer to items that are excessively good or over-the-top as “on steroids”?  You know, like when you make homemade ice cream with booze in it, it would be “ice cream on steroids” or seeing Dave Matthews at Red Rocks would be a “concert on steroids”.  Given this information, you’d think that we call these cookies “cookies on steroids” because of excessive deliciousness or the myriad of add-ins, but that’s actually not the case.

See, my poor husband came down with pneumonia last month and, as a result, was prescribed steroids to help him recover.  They worked really well, but a side effect of prednisone is that it makes you want to eat everything in sight.  He requested these cookies 36 hours after his diagnosis was confirmed and I’m pretty sure I saw him stack 8 of them on a plate as his “dessert”.

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These are sort of a riff on a double chocolate cookie and a peanut butter cookie.  My husband and I don’t typically keep candy in the house (a combination of not loving it and admitting to a lack of willpower), but Reese’s Pieces tend to be our downfall. The only thing challenging about chocolate cookies is that it’s hard to tell when they’re done.  I’d recommend baking only a half dozen on your first cookie sheet to pinpoint your level of doneness – you want chewy for these, not crispy.

Reese’s Chocolate Cookies

yield: 24-36 cookies depending on how large you make them.

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup Reese’s peanut butter chips (they look like tan chocolate chips and can be found in the same spot)

1 cup Reese’s pieces candy

1. Preheat your oven to 350. Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy.  Mix in the egg and vanilla until combined.  Stir the flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda, and salt together and add slowly to the butter and sugar until it forms a nice dough.

2. Stir the flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda, and salt together and add slowly to the butter and sugar until it forms a nice dough.

3. Fold in the peanut butter chips and most of candy until well-distributed (save a tablespoon or two of candy).  Note that if you’re using a stand mixer and add the candies into the mixer, the paddle will crush some of the candy.  This doesn’t bother me, but if it bothers you, then stir in the candy by hand.

4. Scoop tablespoon sized mounds onto a cookie sheet and, if you’d like, stud the tops with the extra candies (this isn’t necessary, but it makes your cookies look prettier).  Bake for 10-12 minutes and allow to set for a few minutes before you remove them from the pan.

Note:

1. I do not condone the use of performance enhancing drugs.

2. I made homemade ice cream with booze this weekend.  It was life-changing.

Sopapilla Cheesecake

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So, you’re looking for the easiest dessert you could possibly make that also tastes incredible?  Here it is.  It’s not fancy, it’s not difficult, and it’s not really cheesecake, but it’s the ultimate potluck dessert.  I send it to work with Ross often and none of it ever comes home.

Sopapilla Cheesecake

2 cans crescent rolls

2 8oz. packages cream cheese (low fat is fine, fat free is not), softened

1 1/4 cup sugar, divided

1/2 stick of butter

1T cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 350.  Roll out one can of crescent rolls (don’t break apart) and press into the bottom of a glass 9×13 baking dish.  You may need to manipulate it a bit to cover the whole bottom.

2. Beat a cup of the sugar with the cream cheese until fluffy and combined.  Using a spatula, spread the mixture all over the layer of crescent rolls leaving about a half inch border around.

3. Unroll the second can of crescent rolls and arrange to cover the top,  I press the edges together.  Melt the butter and pour over the top, stir the cinnamon and additional 1/4 cup of sugar together and sprinkle over the top.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.

 

Dessert Essentials: Graham Cracker Crust and Homemade Whipped Cream

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Graham cracker crust was one of the first things I learned how to cook myself.  I remember being in elementary school crushing graham crackers with a rolling pin (too little to work a food processor), melting butter in the microwave in what always seemed to be the wrong container (plastic, metal), and stirring in a little sugar to make it all come together with a fork.  Over the years I’ve improved my original recipe, but sometimes I still use the rolling pin just for nostalgia’s sake.  I use salted butter and I typically add a little extra salt because I love salt, but definitely taste before you do – it typically needs none unless you use unsalted butter.

As for homemade whipped cream, it’s one of my most favorite things in the world.  It classes up the simplest of desserts, comes together in about 4 minutes, and is light years ahead of anything you could purchase.

I’m putting these two recipes together because you need both to make my two favorite summer pies: key lime and coconut, both of which I’ll be sharing soon.  You could also make a graham cracker crust, fill with chocolate Jello pudding pie filling (the directions are on the box!), top with whipped cream, and have a pretty excellent chocolate pie in no time.

Graham Cracker Crust

1 sleeve “Nabisco Graham” graham crackers in the red box.  No cinnamon, no honey, just the red nabisco box.  A box comes with 3 sleeves, I think there are 8 long crackers in each.

2-3 Tbsp sugar

5 Tbsp butter (salted or unsalted – add 1/2 tsp of salt if using unsalted butter)

1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut (optional)

1. Crush the graham crackers in either a food processor or using a rolling pin.  Add the sugar and melted butter and stir with a fork until well combined.  Fold in the coconut (if using).

2. Preheat the oven to 350.  Press the crust into a pie pan using the bottom of a smooth glass or measuring cup and/or your fingers to cover the bottom and sides.  Bake the pie for 10-15 minutes until brown and fragrant.  Allow to cool before filling.

Note: if you’re making a pie that requires no additional baking, bake for closer to 15 minutes.  If you will be doing additional baking, only bake for about 10.

 

Homemade Whipped Cream

8 oz. whipping cream

3 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

1. Combine ingredients in a bowl and beat at high speed using either a hand mixer or stand mixer until soft peaks form.

2. You can easily add coconut or almond extract in lieu of (or in addition to) the vanilla to give the cream a different flavor – it works well!

Note:

Focaccia Bread

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There’s an amazing brunch place in Dallas that serves $1 bellinis and mimosas until 2 p.m.  They limit you to six (six!), but the mimosas are basically champagne with a little splash of orange juice, in other words, a perfect mimosa.  That, in itself, is reason enough to drive across town and, inevitably, waste the remainder of your day in a post-brunch coma, but they also have amazing food.  Specifically, their focaccia bread is out of this world.  They bring it before your meal on a big pizza pan and ours is always long gone.  After several trips, I decided to try and replicate the focaccia – I had big dreams of doing it one afternoon following brunch, but after 3 mimosas, 4 slices of bread, and a massive eggs benedict (to think – I used to hate brunch food!), all I did was lie on the couch and watch The Little Mermaid with my kids for the millionth time.

I’ve eaten many focaccias over the years – some with onions, olives, and other craziness.  Typically if there’s a food option that contains additional fancy ingredients such as those, I’m all in, but, in the case of focaccia, it’s truly a less is more situation.  This calls for no toppings except rosemary, salt, and a little parmesan cheese.  It’s shockingly easy to make, and a really great introductory bread if yeast breads intimidate you.  Basically, when making bread, in order to get your dough to the right consistency you either need to add your flour to your water or water to your flour slowly.  So much depends on how sifted your flour is, the humidity in the air, the heat in your kitchen, etc.  Most breads have you mix the wet ingredients and add flour until you reach the desired consistency, but in this recipe you add water, and I think it’s easier to gauge the consistency that way because it’s easier to add until the dough just sticks together.

I grow rosemary in my garden, so I have the ingredients for focaccia on hand all the time and started making it about once a week.  You really only need an hour and a half of rise time and half an hour of baking, so it’s possible to make on a weeknight, which is rare for bread.  I actually use canned parmesan cheese for topping – typically I’m a total cheese snob and use fresh grated, but in this case, the can is pretty ideal.

Focaccia Bread

5 cups AP flour

2 tsp yeast

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp salt

2 cups warm water

olive oil for drizzling

coarse salt

fresh rosemary

1/4 cup of parmesan cheese

1. Stir the flour, yeast, and salt together in the bowl of a stand mixer with a bread hook.  Add in the oil and mix until well-combined.  Add the water slowly, a half cup at a time, until the dough comes together in a ball.  Use the mixer to knead the dough for about 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic.  Transfer to a greased bowl, cover with a dishcloth, and allow to rise in a warm spot for about an hour when the dough is doubled in bulk.

2. Punch the dough down and spread into a rimmed baking sheet.  Continue to work the dough until it covers the bottom of the pan.  Allow to rise for an additional 30 minutes while preheating the oven to 425.  Dimple the dough all over using your fingertips and drizzle with olive oil, salt, fresh rosemary, and parmesan cheese.

3. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

 

Toasted Coconut Cookies

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When it comes to desserts, I have very little discretion.  The only things I truly dislike are flan and creme brulee (a texture issue), I’m not really a cake or cheesecake lover, and chocolate and fruit aren’t so much my jam, but, of course, if there’s a chocolate cake with fruit available I’m not one to exercise any restraint.  I will, however, skip the meal and go straight to dessert whenever there’s coconut involved.  Toasted coconut is one of life’s greatest pleasures – and, in my opinion, makes for a great garnish to any dessert.  A sprinkling of toasted coconut is great on ice cream, cupcakes, in a pie, and especially baked into a cookie.  These cookies go beyond a garnishing of coconut and really put the coconut on display.  The result is a crispy, chewy, buttery coconut cookie.

The original recipe calls for coconut chips, which I had trouble locating.  Usually I use sweetened coconut for toasting purposes because it’s cheap and easy to locate, but this time I bought a bag of unsweetened coconut flakes at Target and it worked really well.  The flakes were really fine and incorporated well into the dough.  You could use sweetened coconut if it’s all you have at the grocery store, but if you do, I would consider really backing off on the sugar (starting with half and tasting) or rinsing the sweetened coconut in a strainer and letting it dry out (apparently this removes most of the sweetness).  Unsweetened coconut is hard to find, but I generally can find it at Target or Trader Joe’s and stock up when I see it.

I also browned the butter, which is easy, but takes some time.  You could just use softened butter and skip step 1, but that sort of goes against my life’s mantra of “anything worth doing is worth overdoing”.  Browned butter is just so darn decadent and delicious that it’s worth the effort.  If you use regular butter, omit the 2T of water.

Toasted Coconut Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

2 Tbsp water

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp coarse salt

2 1/2 cups unsweetened flaked coconut

1. Cook the butter in a small saucepan over high heat, stirring frequently until it begins to foam and brown.  It will burn in no time at all, so once the foaming begins, keep a close eye on it and remove from the heat when it starts to smell nutty and turn brown.  Transfer to a small container (I used a glass pyrex measuring cup) and place it in the refrigerator for a few hours to solidify.

2. Preheat the oven to 350.  Beat the butter, sugars, and 2T of water together until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and vanilla, beat to combine.  Add the baking soda, flour and salt and mix until well combined.  Fold in the coconut.

3. Scoop the dough into 1T sized balls and bake for about 11 minutes until golden brown.  Allow the cookies to cool and set on the cookie sheet before transferring to a plate.  Store in an airtight container.