Dried Cherry, White Chocolate & Coconut Cookies

This is one of those great recipes where once you've made the base you can add whatever flavourings to turn them into anything you desire. Usually, when I've made these type of biscuits/cookies in the past I've used caster sugar so I was quite interested in trying out this version that uses icing sugar. This seems quite a logical choice as the trick for achieving that melt-in-the-mouth characteristic is in getting the sugar to totally dissolve in the butter. Icing sugar would eliminate any of the gritty feel which is something you need to be aware of when using normal sugars. This version is from the latest AWW cookbook "Cakes, Biscuits and Slices" which I must say, has the most scrumptious looking cake on its cover.



Dried Cherry, White Chocolate & Coconut Cookies

200g softened butter
½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste
160g icing sugar, sifted
1 egg
260g plain flour, sifted with ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
70g dried cherries
50g shredded coconut
70g white chocolate buds, roughly smashed if they are a large size

Preheat the oven to 170°C/340°F - if your oven is fan-forced preheat to 150°C/300°F.

Place the butter, vanilla bean paste, egg, and icing sugar in the bowl of your mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Stir in the flour & bicarb in two batches.

You have now made the basic vanilla biscuit/cookie.

Stir in the dried cherries, coconut and chocolate buds, making sure they are evenly distributed through the dough.

Roll a tablespoon of dough into a ball, place it on a baking sheet and press it down lightly. Leave some space around each to allow for spreading.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden with a crisp edge. Cool on tray before lifting onto wire racks.

Store in an airtight containers - if you can resist their charm!

This recipe made about 36 biscuits.

Tagged with Biscuits : Cookies