Chocolate Coconut Hedgies

This is another entry in the L.A. Times contest, by a woman named Nika. Her picture was gorgeous, and the cookies sounded great, so I gave them a try.

They are very good, but I think I baked them too long. They came out of the oven soft. When they cooled, they turned biscotti-level hard. I can suggest two ways to remedy this. 1: bake them for a shorter period of time. 2: eat with a hot cup of coffee in the other hand. I'm going to guess that 15 minutes is the correct bake time (the original was 25). If I figure it out, I'll come back and fix it here. It's just really hard to tell when a chocolate cookie is done. There's no subtle browning to tell you what's going on.

Oh, and the hedgie part is because she thinks that the coconut prickling out looks like a hedgehog.

1-1/4 C flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 C butter (one stick)

1/2 C brown sugar

1/2 C granulated sugar

1/4 C cocoa powder

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

*1-1/3 C shredded coconut

powdered sugar for coating

1. Mix flour, soda, and salt. Set aside.

2. Cream together butter and sugars until fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, and cocoa and mix well. Add flour slowly. Knead in coconut (or, if using a stand mixer, use the paddle). Wrap in waxed paper and chill in fridge.

3. Preheat oven to 325º. Make golf-ball sized dough balls and place on parchment-lined sheet. They may be dredged in coconut or powdered sugar before baking. Bake for 15 minutes.

4. When cool, dust with powdered sugar and drizzle on chocolate sauce:

1/4 C cocoa powder

1 drop vanilla

1/2 cap Kahlua liqueur

2 Tb sugar

boiling water for thinning.

Stir together cocoa, vanilla, kahlua, and sugar. Slowly add boiling water to thin to desired consistency.

Makes 2 dozen

Update

December 2, 2010

I made another batch yesterday. Definitely bake them 15 minutes. I also tried substituting 1/2 C cake flour for 1/2 C of regular flour. They came out soft and how I expected, but the cake flour made the dough too soft to mold into balls. It was more like drop-cookie texture. You couldn't roll them in powdered sugar or coconut before baking, so they didn't develop the crackly texture, but the taste was not affected.


Difficulty level  π