Monday, May 28, 2007

Mondays with Maida - Coconut Pennies


Page 224 in the old book / page 251 in the new book


Time for another chapter in the continuing saga of Cathy's coconut adventures... As you may recall from last week, the cookies billed as "semisoft" turned out very crunchy. Well, this week the cookies described as "crisper" (than last week's Coconut Washboards) were actually quite chewy. I suppose there could be some other explanation, but at the moment my assumption is that it all comes down to the coconut.

Last week I used unsweetened, dessicated coconut. This week I used a store brand of sweetened "flaked" coconut. The flakes of this coconut are broader and shorter than either the "Angel Flake" or "Fancy Shred" Baker's coconut you may be familiar with and I think account for the chewiness of these cookies. I neglected to take a picture of the coconut, but Leigh suggested I do a post with pictures of the various types, which I think is a great idea, so look for that sometime soon.

This recipe had small amounts of cinnamon and nutmeg in it, but I couldn't detect either. The cookies are most noticeably sweet, rich (two sticks of butter'll do it), and chewy. I didn't think they were as good as the Coconut Washboards, but they earned equal marks from the cookie panel.

Here's the panel...

Suzanne: "The cookie reminded me of a dry, chewy, oatmeal cookie. I don’t know if I really tasted the coconut except it did make the cookie chewy. This wasn’t one of my favorites. Rating - 3.0"

Laura: "Chewy and sweet - not as coconutty as I would have expected, but still a very delicious cookie. Rating - 4.0"

Denny: "Very good. Crunchy and coconutty. Minus one for no chocolate makes them a 3.0 to my tastebuds. Rating - 3.0"

Terri: "These have a chewier texture then the Washboards from last week. I prefer these. The amount of coconut is just enough to give them a coconut flavor but not like a macaroon. I'm not sure why the name 'Pennies' except the shape is round! Rating - 3.5"

Overall rating by the panel - 3.4

Next week - Cracker-Barrel Raisin Cookies (oh-oh, Suzanne's not going to like that...)

Nutrition Facts

1 comment:

Unknown said...

There is a definite editing error in this recipe as well as the adjacent Coconut Washboards. It's where the amount of dough used for each recipe. Washboards should be a tablespoon of dough and Pennies a teaspoon. Recipes read the other way around which makes a big difference IMO