Mondays with Maida - Coconut Grove Cookies

Page 28 in the old book / page 44 in the new book

Another chocolate drop cookie this week, but this one is very interesting. The base is chocolate with chunks of chocolate – quite similar to a couple of the cookies from past weeks – but they are topped with a chewy coconut and meringue mixture. Think Mounds bar inside out. They are not the most attractive cookies and those coconut topknots have minds of their own (about half wound up on the side after the cookies baked), but with nuggets of bittersweet chocolate within and that chewy coconut on top they taste great. The recipes in the old and new books are the same, though the new book calls for semisweet chocolate and lacks a note which is found in the old book. The old book lists sweet, bittersweet and semisweet chocolate as options and specifically mentions Lindt Excellence, Tobler Tradition, Lindt or Tobler extra-bittersweet, and Baker’s German Sweet as good choices. Since I needed 8 ounces of chocolate for this recipe, I decided to use Callebaut bittersweet which is sold by the pound in Whole Foods.

Except for the aforementioned problem with the coconut topping sliding off in baking, I had no trouble mixing or baking these cookies. I got lucky and managed to portion out the chocolate base and coconut topping so that I didn’t wind up running short on either one.



I liked these – they were fun to make and tasted very good. I am so ready to try some of the non-chocolate cookie recipes though! Speaking of which, Viv at Seattle Bon Vivant recently posted about an article on cookie baking that appeared in the Seattle Times. The article includes a recipe from Maida Heatter for Sour-Cream Ginger Cookies. If I keep on schedule, I’ll be posting about those cookies on February 14th. If they sound good to you, you may want to grab the recipe while you can.

Next time – Chocolate Raisin Cookies.

Nutrition Facts