I’m addicted to two things right now:

One - Scandal (just watched my first episode this week and then proceeded to blow through the entire first season in two days … so bad it’s good!) and Two - chocolate chip cookies of all kinds (can’t stop thinking about chocolate chip cookies)!

A co-worker brought some coconut chocolate cookies into work the other day and they were amazing (and much needed)! From that inspiration, this recipe was born.

I love coconut so much, and I love good dark chocolate too, so the combination is dreamy here. The longer you leave these cookies sitting in the cookie jar, the more you will taste the coconut. The recipe is big enough to make cookies for a few days so you’ll see what I mean into day two and three.

If you don’t regularly stock coconut oil in the house you can use all butter here. I just like the addition of coconut oil in both taste and texture and I stock it in my pantry.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 2 dozen medium-sized cookies or about 60 tiny cookies

2 C whole wheat flour
1/2 C almond meal (or finely ground almonds)
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1/2 C unsalted butter, softened
1/3 C coconut oil, melted, cooled to room temperature
3/4 C brown sugar
3/4 C natural sugar
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
2 C dark chocolate chips
1 C unsweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350ºF/180ºC. Prepare cookie sheet with a layer of parchment paper. Sift flour, almond meal, baking soda and salt together, set aside. In a standing mixer with a paddle attachment cream together butter, coconut oil and sugars. Beat until very light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Add vanilla, beat the mixture well again. Add in the dry mixture and mix on very low briefly. When dough is barely mixed at all, stop and add in coconut and chocolate chips. Again, mix on slow until cookie dough comes together. Scoop dough onto your prepared cookie sheet and bake for 10–12 minutes. Let cookies cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a cooking rack.

Cookie Variations: You can make a few dozen more pillow, larger cookies by scooping round mounds onto your cookie sheet and baking them as is (middle cookie in the above photograph). I also like to bake tiny cookies by scooping little teaspoonful mounds onto the cookie sheet, twenty at a time (left cookie). A tip I recently got from my friends at Scratch Baking Co., was to open the oven half-way through the baking process and gently push down the cookies. I used a spoon to do this on my little cookies, wiping it each time so the chocolate did not get messy, and I loved the results. The cookie had a crispy edge and a chewy inside. So nice. You can also turn the oven up to 375ºF, scoop and press your dough mounds down before they go into the oven, and bake the cookies for 9–10 minutes for a crispier cookie all around (right cookie).

—MAV