Easy Coconut Drops

Makes about 40 cookies

Easy Coconut Drops I can never have enough coconut, whether it's in cakes, cookies, or custards. This easy cookie with lots of coconut flavor and texture is my idea of perfection.

One 7-ounce bag sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
2 cookie sheets or jelly roll pans
lined with parchment or foil

1. Set the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees.

2. In the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, place the coconut and pulse for 1-second intervals about a dozen times. Your object is to make the coconut smaller but not to grind it too fine.

3. In a bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder and salt.

4. Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle. Beat on medium speed for about half a minute, then beat in the vanilla, then the egg. Beat until smooth again.

5. Lower the speed and beat in the flour mixture, then the coconut.

6. Remove the bowl from the mixer and complete the mixing with a large rubber spatula.

7. Drop teaspoonfuls of the batter on the prepared pans about 2 or 3 inches apart. Bake the cookies about 12 to 15 minutes, until they have spread and are golden around the edges.

8. Slide the papers from the pans onto racks.

9. After the cookies have cooled, detach them from the paper and store them between sheets of parchment or wax paper in a tin or plastic container with a tight-fitting cover.

Buy the Book!

Cookies Unlimited
By Nick Malgieri
HarperCollins, October 2000
Hardcover, $35.00
Color photographs throughout
ISBN: 0-06-019285-2
Recipe reprinted by permission.