Coconutties

Over the last year the movies Despicable Me I and II have played over and over at our home. For those who have not seen them. Go and see them! They are hilariously funny. All our children are able to reproduce quote after quote from the movies. One night I was lying awake wandering what coconutties would taste like. I did not know they where cookies that actually excited before the movie but it turns out that they do.

One of the ingredients, sweetened coconut, I had never heard off. You can quite easily create this from desiccated coconut so if you can’t buy this ingredient than just make it yourself. It is readily available in the USA and you can buy it in our bigger supermarkets (Woolworths has it). The process of heating egg whites with solid ingredients to make a paste before baking was also new to me. Quite a nice (and easy) process.

Needles to say that my kids where very surprised and happy to bite into these sweet coconut, nuts and white chocolate beauty’s after a long hike up one of the gorges in WA.

Ingredients:

4 large egg whites

3 cups dried sweetened shredded coconut

¾ cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp coconut extract

¼ cup all purpose flour

½ cup chopped macadamia nuts (divided in 2 halfs)

1 cup white chocolate chips (divided in 2 halfs)

Methode:

1.     put egg whites, coconut, sugar, vanilla and coconut extract and flour together. Mix well. Cook on low heat until it becomes thick. Keep stirring constantly or it will stick to the bottom of pan and burn.  Then let it cool to room temperature (stirring occasionally as it cools)

2.     When cool, add half of the macadamia’s and half of the white chocolate. Mix well. Pre heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

3.     Drop spoonfuls on baking trays covered with baking paper (or put them in a cookie mold to get even shapes, like I did). Bake for 12-13 minutes until golden brown, then remove from the oven and let cool on baking trays.

4.     This step is optional and I have not bothered with it. (Instead I added some more nuts and chocolate in step 2). Once cool, melt remaining white chocolate chips. Drizzle over each cookie and sprinkle with additional chopped macadamia nuts.

Making sweetened coconut:

Ingredients:

3 cups desiccated coconut (rough is better then fine for these cookies)

6 tbsp powdered sugar

3 tbsp canola oil (or other vegetable oil)

4 tbsp water

Methode:

1.     mix coconut with sugar. Stir well.

2.     Mix oil with water. Stir well.

3.     Now mix dry and wet ingredients thoroughly.

4.     Let this stand for approx. 10 minutes or until all moisture is absorbed. Stir mixture once or twice while waiting.

Use immediately or store in fridge for short period of time.