Almond Coconut Diamond Cookies

This is another of the Good Housekeeping Illustrated book of Desserts recipe. LOVE this cookbook! Per usual, I lessened the amount of sugar and added coconut flakes. It seems as if that’s a pattern with me. If I were to rename my blog, I may call it “Just Add Coconut”. Other possible blog names would be: “My Love of Cheese Chronicled in Pictures of My Eats” or “Reasons Why I Would Never Last on a Diet.”

Anyway, this recipe is a bit time-consuming only because the dough needs to be chilled BUT you can also make the dough a few days ahead of time and then bake them when they’re ready to be consumed.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup sugar

½ cup margarine or butter (1 stick), softened

1/3 cup shredded coconut

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon almond extract

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

Directions:

In a large bowl, add flour, sugar, butter, vanilla extract, coconut, salt, almond extract and whole egg. With a mixer at low speed, beat ingredients until they are blended. You’ll find that the dough doesn’t come together like most cookie dough. It’ll be pretty soft.

Take the dough and shape it into a log about 8 inches by 2 inches. It’s going to look a bit like a slice-and-bake roll.

Wrap it up in wax paper and pop it in the freezer for an hour or fridge for two hours. This will firm up the dough so that you can slice it thinly.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a sharp knife, cut up dough into ¼ inch thick slices.

Put the slices onto an ungreased cookie sheet about 1 inch apart.

In a cup, beat the egg yolk and brush a thin layer onto each cookie using a pastry brush.

Using a knife, mark criss-crosses on the dough. This is just for aesthetic value so if you’re pressed for time, feel free to skip this step.

Bake cookies for about 10-15 minutes until it’s lightly browned. Keep an eye on them so the bottom of the cookies don’t burn.

When done, put them onto a wire rack to cool.

Again, these cookies are also not too sweet and delicious. They have a hint of almond and coconut flavor. When I make these again, I will probably add half a cup of coconut so that the flavor comes out a little more. It may be that my coconut is old though, so that may be the problem. I ate about 4 of them before I could stop myself!

Definitely a keeper recipe!

Tags: almond coconut cookies, almond extract, baking, coconut, Good Housekeeping