These coconut butter cookies are a tasty cross between a moist coconut macaroon and a luscious butter cookie — if you like coconut macaroons this cookie is for you.
The dough is very easy to whip up in a food processor. Just make sure not to over-process or the cookies will be tough. The dough doesn’t spread much in the oven, so you can easily fit 12 cookies on one sheet for faster baking.
I changed a few things from the original recipe, here’s how to make them:
Start by preheating the oven to 325 degrees instead of the 350 degrees in the recipe. I found that the cookies burned at the higher temp while 325 degrees produced perfect lightly browned bottoms and tops and didn’t burn the coconut topping.
Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silpat and set aside.
Set aside a cup of the shredded coconut to use later for the topping. Place remaining coconut, sugar, salt and baking powder into a food processor. Process until finely ground.
Add the chilled pieces of butter and process until no lumps remain. Add the egg and vanilla extract and process until smooth.
Add flour and pulse until dough turns crumbly, scraping down the sides of the processor as needed. Do not over process dough or cookies will be tough.
Scoop the dough out with a small scoop (1 Tablespoon) and roll into compact little balls.
The recipe tells you to roll the balls in the reserved coconut, but I only dipped the tops of the cookies in the shredded coconut instead of rolling them. The rolled cookies ended up being burned but the ones with coconut on the tops only turned out great.
Place the balls on a parchment or silpat covered baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes then rotate the pan and bake for another 10 minutes.
Check to make sure the cookies are just getting golden browned, not burned. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
