White Chocolate, Caramel, and Coconut Chewy Cookies

This year everyone got baked goods as their Christmas gift. I wanted to make sure I gave everyone a variety of goodies and flavors, so I set out to create some new flavor combinations along the way. I know chocolate chip cookies are a great comfort cookie; they are classic, the balance of chocolate to cookie is inviting. Everything is wonderful. However, I wanted to expand the classic chocolate chip cookie and see what else could be done with it.

Much like the brownie debate (are you a cakey brownie person or a fudgey brownie person? I'm more of a fudgey, chewy person myself!), there is also a cookie debate: Do you like your cookies crunchy and a bit firm, or chewy and a bit moist? These particular cookies, as you guessed from the title, are chewy. The edges crisp up a bit, but the center remains chewy and delightful.

The inspiration for this cookie came from me scrounging around in my cupboard. I try to always have chocolate chips on hand because sometimes I want to bake cookies, but also because chocolate chip pancakes rule and I adore them. In addition to my milk and dark chocolate chips, I found white chocolate chips, which would have been a nice flavor all on their own, and caramel chips. Now caramel is a difficult flavor to get right in chip form in my opinion. If the balance isn't right it doesn't taste like caramel, just sugar. But caramel and white chocolate sounded fun, tasty, and a bit festive as well. Then I saw the shredded coconut and was reminded of the caramel coconut Girl Scout cookies of my childhood. Now, you might hate me a bit for saying this, but those were never my favorite. They didn't always taste right, I'm guessing because they aren't fresh that something happens to the cookie flavor over time. However, I do like coconut and caramel, so I wanted to honor that in this cookie.

If you're also a fan of coconut, caramel, and chocolate then get baking! As always, please consider making a donation here so I can keep providing everyone with the goods!

You can see the lovely chips and coconut pieces!

White chocolate, caramel, and coconut soft, chewy cookies!

Ingredients:

• 2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature-really soft
• 3/4 cup (or 150 g) packed light or dark brown sugar (really pack it in!) I like dark best.
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup caramel chips* 
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

*I use Ghirardelli’s for both, but I think it’s a great choice for the caramel chips because it is a hard flavor to mimic in chip form.


Don’t forget to take the butter and eggs out of the fridge ahead of time. I usually leave mine out to soften at room temperature for 2-3 hours. Additionally, I’ve specified that the butter should be really soft for this recipe. What consistency is that? If you have made buttercream before you know you want the butter to be soft, but not greasy looking because then it won’t be thick enough to hold shape and stay on the cake. This cookie recipe would love it if the butter was getting that greasy look to it and were really soft. Your rubber spatula should be able to press right through the middle of the stick with ease. This recipe works best without a mixer. 

Tools
Ruber Spatula or Wooden Spoon
Whisk
Large Bowl
Medium Bowl
Measuring Cups
Measuring Spoons
2-3 Cookie Trays 
2-3 Silicon 


Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to cream the butter. If the butter is not easy to press through with your spatula microwave it for 10 seconds on full power and that should help. Stir the butter until it is smooth and creamy. Then add the brown sugar and granulated sugar and mix well. There shouldn’t be any sugar lumps. Add the vanilla and stir well. The mixture should be a nice pale brown color.
3. Stir in the eggs one at a time. Make sure you beat each egg into the mixture until it is well incorporated. The mixture should be thicker and glue like. It will still be a bit runny.
4. Pour the dry flour mixture into the wet ingredients a little at a time stirring after each implementation. The dough should be soft and thick. Fold in the white chocolate chips, the caramel chips. Then fold in the shredded coconut. Leave the dough in the bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours. It will puff a little because of the baking soda, but this will give you a soft and chewy cookie, so that’s good. You need to chill the dough to keep the butter from leaking out when you bake it. Since the butter was really soft and melty when you mixed everything in it will make your cookie fall apart or go flat if you try to bake it without chilling the dough. 
5. The dough is ready to use right after you take it out of the fridge; it doesn’t need to soften before you work with it.
   
6. Preheat oven to 325°F. Line two large baking trays (I use the half sheet size) with silicone baking mats (like Silpat) or parchment paper and set aside.
7. I use an ice cream scoop to get perfect balls of cookie dough.** (The brand I have is OXO Good Grips Trigger Ice Cream Scoop which makes a scoop size of 2-1/4 inches or about 3 tablespoons. I find this is perfect for two cookies. So I use the scoop and divide that ball in 2. Now if you bake cookies a lot you might have a medium scoop that give you 1 ½ tablespoon sized scoops, which would give you the size of one cookie.) The dough will be a little sticky so wet your fingers after every few cookie balls you drop on the tray to prevent the dough from sticking. If you don’t have the trigger release ice cream scoop measuring spoons will work fine. Use about 1 ½ tablespoons per cookie.
   
8. Place only 8 balls of dough onto each baking sheet because the cookies spread out a lot from the ball and more cookies will cause the sides to mush against each other and you will have square cookies.

   

   They look like an orb which gives them volume

   

   Give them room to grow. They expand a bit!

9. Bake the cookies for 11-13 minutes. The cookies should just begin to brown around the edges and the middle may still be puffed up a bit. They might look under baked, but they are done. Remove them from the oven and let the cookies cool on the baking tray for about 10 minutes before moving them to a wire rack to finish cooling. The heat from the cookie sheet will continue to cook the cookies even after they are out of the oven. The middle of the cookie will deflate to the normal size and the cookie will solidify more. They won’t come off in one piece if you try to remove them from the tray when they are still hot. 

   

   After about 5 minutes in the oven. The lump is still visible in the center.

Just over the halfway baking mark

Almost ready to come out. See the brown edges.

Last cooling round. See how they've deflated a little. They are still chewy in the middle.

I hope you give this recipe a go. The flavor combination is lovely. These cookies didn't last long in my house, nor in any of they houses they were delivered to. I've already had several people request the recipe before I even got the chance to type it out. Happy Baking and Happy Holidays!!

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