Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Almond Joy Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Almond Joy Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sure wish I shoulda-woulda-coulda tasted one of these cookies.  Okay, I could have, but didn’t.  I made a big batch of these using My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe—you know—these--

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

I got this wild idea to make cookies with Almond Joy in them.  It was Kevin’s 40th birthday recently and I surprised him and had many friends over, some that he hasn’t seen for years and some of his favorite people, as well as some of his current friends.  He had no idea.  He just thought we were having our usual celebration of goodies with two of his sisters and their families.  It was such a fun evening and worked better than I thought it would. 

I also made some peanut butter overload cookies using the same recipe, but with lots of peanut buttery add ins, like chopped up Nutter Butter cookies, Reese’s pieces, and peanut butter chips as well as some chocolate chips.  Stay tuned for a post for those cookies!

Kevin loves Almond Joy cookies and likes pretty much anything with coconut, so I knew he’d like these and that others would, too.  

I’ve mentioned and posted before (link above) about my favorite chocolate chip cookies, they are my take on the famous Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookies, I’ve made a few slight changes, but a few things that make those cookies so good is that instead of all purpose flour, they have cake flour and bread flour.  I really think that these flours make all the difference in how the cookies come out, besides using the best chocolate chips you can find (I use Ghirardelli 60% chips, which are bigger and flatter, like the disks of chocolate Jacques uses).  I have had friends and family rave about my chocolate chip cookies for years, so I’m sticking with this recipe.  It’s worth it to me to always have bread and cake flour on hand.  As often as I make these cookies, I decided it was time to try them with other things added to them.  Yep, they turn out perfectly!  So I’m telling you, try the chocolate chip cookie recipe.  Once you do, you’ll never go back to another recipe. ; )

Almond Joy Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

8 ½ ounces cake flour (2 cups minus 2 tablespoons) (lightly spooned into the measuring cup and swept level with a knife)

8 ½ ounces bread flour (1 and 2/3 cups) (lightly spooned and swept)

1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt

2 ½ sticks (1 ¼ cups) unsalted butter, room temperature

10 ounces (1 ¼ cups) light brown sugar

8 ounces (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

6 ounces (1 cup) dark chocolate chips or chopped chocolate (Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips are what I always use)

11.3 ounces (1 bag of fun size, or the equivalent) of Almond Joy candy bars, roughly chopped

1 cup sweetened, shredded coconut

(I was out of almonds, but would have added some more chopped, toasted ones if I’d had them)

Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl with a wire whisk. Set aside.

In bowl of electric mixer, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Then add the vanilla and combine.  Scrape the sides of the bowl. With mixer on low, add dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Put the mix-ins in the bowl and carefully fold together with rubber spatula just until combined.  You don’t want to overmix the candy bars.  Scoop with a 2 ounce (1/4 cup scoop).  You should get 24 scoops.  Put them on a wax paper lined baking sheet.  Cover with foil and freeze (or refrigerate).

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and put the cookies on an air bake sheet, only 5 cookies per sheet.  Bake from frozen for about 12 minutes.  Check the cookies, remove from the oven and with the sides of a metal spatula, if any of the cookies are misshapen and not nicely rounded, push the spatula lightly on to the cookies where they need rounded around the edges.  Decide if they need another minute or two in the oven.  Sometimes I think they do, sometimes they are perfect.  Let them cool on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes.  Remove to a wire rack to cool until you can’t stand it anymore and have to taste one.  (If you have a convection oven, you can bake 2 or 3 cookie sheets at a time.  Every oven is different, but even though baking on convection you should lower the temperature 25 degrees, I still leave mine at 350 for these.)  Test yours for best results.

Almond Joy Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookie

These turned out just as I’d hoped they would!

7 comments:

Renee Paj said...

wow. these look spectacular!!! I'd have to hide them if they were in my house, because I know I'd eat WAYYYY too many!! YUM!

Patsyk said...

Wow! You've packed a lot of goodness into these cookies!

marye said...

Oh my.... drooling. I love these!

Lisa Ernst said...

I couldn't agree more -- the best CCC recipe in the world! Your experiments look really fun.

Emily said...

Yummm. These look amazing! I can only imagine how delicious these taste. I love almond joy anything!

Shelby said...

Yummy! I adore almond joy :)

Valerie said...

I love Almond Joy and these look really good.