A Tropical Party In Your Mouth

Chewy Coconut Lime Sugar Cookies. Let that sink in for a minute. Sugar cookies that are crisp on the edges, yet soft and chewy in the middle, that have shredded coconut and zesty lime in them. Yes please! As my friend said, these were a tropical party in her mouth. I've wanted to make coconut lime cookies for awhile now. Maria from Two Peas and Their Pod shared them on her blog last year and I was set to make them until I saw a different recipe on Foodbuzz shared by Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures. Tracey made both versions and said these were the best she had tasted. Well that solves that problem!

I made these a couple weeks ago and I was intrigued by them because they have a couple ingredients that set them apart from other sugar cookies. Firstly, there's cream cheese in them that contributes to their softness. And there's a combination of melted butter and vegetable (or canola) oil in these that helps with the ever slight crispness on the edges and the chewiness in the center of the cookie. Finely chopped shredded coconut also plays a large part of the texture here as well. The taste of the coconut was really subtle but it was the lime zest that was the star. Because of the softened cream cheese, the melted butter and the oil, the cookie dough was really soft, so handle these as little as possible and work quickly.

I have to tell you a funny story about these cookies though. I shared a few with a couple different friends as well as my mother. My friends ate theirs slowly, savored them and shared only with a select (lucky) few, declared them fantastic, then regretted sharing them because they were gone so quickly. My mom opened up her plastic baggie of cookies, inspected them and asked if I had dropped them on the ground before giving them to her. She saw flecks of lime zest in the cookies and thought it was grass! ha ha! Don't really know if that was a compliment or not, but as least our grass is green and not brown :-)

Chewy Coconut-Lime Sugar Cookies from Cook's Illustrated via Tracey's Culinary Adventures

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• 2 1/4 cups (11 1/4 oz.) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 oz.) sugar, plus 1/3 cup for rolling
• 2 oz. cream cheese, cut into 8 pieces
• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut, chopped fine
• 1 teaspoon lime zest
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and still warm
• 1/3 cup vegetable (or canola) oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 tablespoon lime juice

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, coconut, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Combine 1 1/2 cups of sugar, the lime zest, and cream cheese in a large bowl (no need to stir them together yet). Put the remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a pie plate and set aside. Pour the warm butter over the cream cheese mixture and whisk to combine - the mixture won't be completely smooth yet, that's fine. Whisk in the oil then the egg, milk and lime juice. Mix until smooth. Use a rubber spatula to fold the dry ingredients into the wet, until a soft dough comes together.

Portion the dough onto the prepared baking sheets with a cookie scoop, using about 2 tablespoons for each cookie. Working quickly (if you handle the dough too much you're more likely to wind up with flat cookies), roll the dough into a ball with your hands then roll in the sugar set aside in the pie plate previously. Repeat until you've used all of the dough, placing 9 cookies on each baking sheet. Use the bottom of a glass to flatten the dough balls into discs that are about 2 inches in diameter. Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with the remaining sugar in the pie plate, using about 2 teaspoons per sheet of cookies.

Bake the cookies, 1 tray at a time, for about 11-13 minutes, or until the edges are set and beginning to brown. The tops will be puffy and slightly cracked. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and let the cookies cool on the sheet for 5 minutes then transfer them to the rack to cool completely.

Makes 24-28 cookies.

I had my cookies with a refreshing limeade. Pour chilled Sprite into a glass filled with ice. Squeeze fresh lime into Sprite and stir. Garnish with a girly umbrella straw.

For a cherry limeade- Make drink as above, add marachino cherry syrup (from the jar) as well as a few whole cherries. Enjoy!