Coconut Cookies

Homemade cookies evoke feelings of caring and love and they spread joy.   Cookies are a pleasure to bake as they make the whole house smell great, and put smiles on the faces of people who are eating them.  There are so many cookie recipes and varieties of cookies as there are personalities in people.  Cookie can range anywhere from soft and chewy to crisp and crunchy.  Ideally, cookies should be served as soon as they come out of the oven so that guests can enjoy the baking aroma as well as the taste of the cookies.  Most cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature, but they will lose a little fresh flavor every day. For the Chinese New Year Celebration, cookies are prepared ahead cos of time constraints due to preparing too many varieties.  The chinese are very superstitious and white is a color associated with mourning and a little red will contra the ill effect, I topped these cookies with some red colored sugar, not that i am superstitious, but because i think the red sugar made the cookies more appealing. 

Ingredients:

100 g all-purpose flour
100 g butter
100 g fine granulated sugar
50 g dessicated coconut plus more for topping.
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract/essence
Colored sugar for topping(optional)

Method:

Add salt to the flour and mix well with a fork. 

Cream butter and sugar until they are thoroughly combined.  Do not cream until fluffy as you will beat a lot of air into the mixture and as the cookies bake, the air bubbles will expand, causing your cookies to rise, but as soon as they come out of the oven, they will fall flat.

Add in egg yolk and vanilla. Beat until well combined.

Fold in coconut and flour and mix only until everything is combined into a soft dough. Overmixing at this stage will encourage the development of the gluten in the flour and may result in tough cookies.

Rest the dough by chilling in refrigerator cos chilled dough keeps its shape better and bakes up higher.

Using a 1 oz ice-cream scoop, scoop dough on to baking sheet, 2 inches apart.

Top with more coconut and then colored sugar(if using).

Bake in preheated oven at 375f  for 12 - 15 minutes until light golden brown.  These cookies are small and will cook through quickly, so a high oven temperature will adequately brown the crusts before the insides dry out.  Watch the cookies carefully as the timer winds down.  As soon as the outsides are golden, pull them from the oven.  These cookies are at risk cos they are small, if left in the oven just a minute or two too long, they will burn and dry out.
Cool before storing into air-tight containers.

Serves