The Leftover Guru

Today’s delicious dish – Coconut-Almond Cookies

I love small cookies with subtle flavors.  I enjoy taking the time to savor a fine homemade cookie, smelling its delicate aroma and allowing its understated essence to tantalize my palate.  I think sometimes we tend to eat too many commercially-prepared cookies because they lack that elusive quality that homemade cookies have.

This cookie recipe has two of my favorite flavors – coconut and almond.  The cookies are lightly browned, but still nicely soft inside.  And they are small, made with just 1 Tablespoon of dough.  I used to have trouble making small cookies because, as the time went on, I got tired to the process and started making the cookies bigger and bigger, just to get it over with.  Then I got a perfectly-sized cookie scoop, and it became easy to just keep on making uniformly-sized cookies.  I definitely recommend using a cookie scoop – it’s great to have these in a couple of sizes.

If you don’t want to use coconut oil in this recipe, you can substitute the same amount of vegetable shortening or additional butter, and if you don’t want to use almond extract, you can substitute that amount of vanilla extract.  If you want larger cookies, use more dough per cookie, and increase the baking time a bit

Lining the baking sheet with parchment paper ensures that the cookies don’t over-brown, don’t stick, and are easy to transfer to the cooling rack.  I encourage you to get parchment paper if you don’t have it.  You can find it in your grocery store near the plastic wrap and waxed paper.  It is not too expensive, and it has many uses.

Coconut-Almond Cookies

• 1/3 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar (packed)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes (packed)

Turn on oven to 350 degrees.

Beat together coconut oil, soft butter, and sugars until fluffy.  Beat in egg and almond extract to make a completely smooth mixture.

Combine baking soda, baking powder, cornstarch, and flour.  Add to mixture and beat well.  Beat in coconut flakes.

Make balls of dough from 1 Tablespoon cookie dough.  Place on parchment paper-lined baking pan, leaving at least an inch between cookies and away from the side of the pan.

Bake for 13 minutes.  Remove from oven and let sit for 2 minutes.  Carefully transfer cookies to cooling rack.

Repeat until all dough is made into cookies.

Makes about 44 small cookies.

Nutritional information (per cookie): 82 calories, 4.5 grams fat, 3 grams saturated fat, 0 grams protein, 10 grams carbohydrate, 5 grams sugars, 0 grams fiber, 10 milligrams cholesterol, 43 milligrams sodium

Cost per cookie: 10 cents

Preparation time: 1 1/2 hours

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What happens next?

 These cookies are soft and small, so it is very tempting to eat them right away.  But they keep very well for up to a week, and can also be frozen.

It is unlikely that you will have any leftover cookies, so I recommend that you put aside 16 cookies to make the next recipe.  You will be glad you did!

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Another day’s delicious dish – Almond Butter Ice Cream Sandwiches

Coconut-Almond Cookies are the foundation of this great dessert.  First, vanilla ice cream is combined with almond butter and almond extract, then re-frozen.  Next, it gets sandwiched between two small cookies and frozen for a while, then gets wrapped in waxed paper and spends more time in the freezer.

This dessert is not a quick thing that you can make and serve in less than 30 minutes.  In fact, making it is an exercise in delayed gratification.  But these Almond Butter Ice Cream Sandwiches are so very delicious, you will not be sorry you waited.

If you don’t want to use almond butter, you can substitute peanut butter, and if you don’t want to use almond extract, you can substitute vanilla extract.  There will be no harm done if any of the freezing stages go longer than the recipe specifies, so don’t feel like you have to stay up too late or get up way too early just to keep the recipe going according to the directions.

If you don’t have any Coconut-Almond Cookies, you can still make this recipe.  Prepare the almond butter ice cream according to the recipe, then use any small soft cookie when you assemble the sandwiches.  Hard, crispy cookies are likely to not be quite as successful in this recipe as softer cookies will be.  I think small oatmeal cookies are very good with this almond butter ice cream.

Almond Butter Ice Cream Sandwiches

• 1 cup vanilla ice cream
• 1 Tablespoon Almond Extract
• 3 Tablespoons crunchy almond butter
• 16 Coconut-Almond Cookies

Allow ice cream to soften for about 2 minutes.  Beat together ice cream, almond extract, and almond butter.  Beat on high speed (whip) for 1 minute.  Place ice cream mixture in the freezer for at least 4 hours, or until firm enough to scoop.

Make ice cream sandwiches by putting a scant 2 Tablespoons of the ice cream mixture between 2 Coconut-Almond Cookies.  Place sandwiches on baking sheet and place in freezer.  After 1 1/2 hours (90 minutes) in freezer, wrap each sandwich in waxed paper and return to freezer.  Allow to freeze for at least 8 hours before serving.

Makes 8 small ice cream sandwiches.

Nutritional information (per sandwich): 239 calories, 13 grams fat, 7.5 grams saturated fat, 3 grams protein, 26 grams carbohydrate, 14 grams sugars, 1 gram fiber, 27 milligrams cholesterol, 119 milligrams sodium 

Cost per serving:  42 cents

 Preparation time: 20 minutes for mixing and assembly

Freezing time:  at least 13 1/2 hours