Lemon White Chocolate Coconut Cookies

Versão em português

White chocolate is one of those things that I only learned to enjoy as a grown-up. The first step was not thinking about it as chocolate (because then dark chocolate wins!), but as a tasty treat! Unfortunately, a lot of brands have hydrogenated fat, which makes them quite icky. One of these days, I bought a fancy Belgian one and I kept thinking how great it was! It was time to look for some recipes, such as this one from The Baker Chick.

Despite the white chocolate, these cookies aren’t overly sweet. Together with a fresh cup of coffee, these were a hit!

1 ½ cups sweetened coconut flakes – I used unsweetened coconut flakes and I thought the cookies were sweet enough!
1 ¾ cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
113 g unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup brown sugar – press the sugar when measuring
½ cup white sugar
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tsp lemon juice
113 g white chocolate, chopped

Spread the coconut flakes on a baking sheet and toast in a pre-heated oven for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring well every 2 minutes, until the coconut is golden. Set aside the coconut, but don’t turn off the oven.

Cover the cookie sheets with parchment paper – I used a Silpat.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. In the bowl of your stand mixer, place the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar, and mix until they are well combined. In cookie recipes, I try to avoid over-beating the butter. Add the egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and lemon zest and juice, and combine the ingredients using a silicone spatula.

Add the dry ingredients, mixing until you can’t see any flour specks anymore. Finally, add white chocolate and the toasted coconut, and mix well with the spatula.

Use a cookie scoop to portion the dough, or simply make small balls of dough (1 Tbsp). Place them in the cookie sheets, leaving about one inch between them – they spread a little bit in the oven.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are slightly golden. Carefully remove them from the cookie sheet – they will be kind of soft! – and let them cool completely on a cooling rack.

Tip: If you’re using the same baking sheet to bake multiple batches, cool it before adding the second batch, so that the cookies won’t spread too much in the oven. I usually remove the baked cookies (and the parchment paper, obviously) and place the sheet under running tap water for a few seconds, until it’s cool enough for me to touch it with my bare hands. Then, I dry it with a cloth and it’s ready for the second batch!
Freezer: If you don’t want to bake the entire batch on the same day, flash-freeze the dough balls on a tray. When they are completely frozen, transfer them to a Ziploc bag – they’ll last up to three months in the freezer. To bake, place the frozen balls on the prepared baking sheet and bake for a few extra minutes! It’s that easy!