Chaotic cooky kitchen #2

   January 15, 2021  Posted in _Food, Cookies

Drop cookies cont’d

Welcome back to the Chaotic Cooky Kitchen! As I mentioned last week, I am aiming to cook one recipe from the iconic Cooky Book every week. For now, though, we’ll celebrate that I haven’t completely dropped this idea like a bad New Year’s resolution yet. In other words, the weekly cooky adventure continues!

This week’s cookie is… wait for it…

Pineapple coconut cooky/cookie
Chosen because, well, I’m not certain I’ve ever had a pineapple cookie before

These can be found on page 9, and I’m doing the 1st alternate on the base Pineapple Cookies recipe. The ingredients round-up:

One guess which one of these isn’t going into the cookies.1 Hint: this was the 60s; the fresh pineapple survived.

First off, we cream together the shortening (don’t complain; see above, Re: the 60s, and just be glad I didn’t break out the lard or bacon fat2) the sugar, and the egg.

And then, unlike me, you should add the pineapple and stir it in. Instead, I missed that bit and moved right on to the flour. (The good news is, I don’t think it mattered.)

This time, though, I did remember to follow my rule and sift the flour. Handily, you can add the other powdery stuff right into the sieve, stir it a bit, and sift it into the bowl. (The modified recipe calls for you to omit the nutmeg if you add coconut, but that didn’t make sense to me, so I broke from the recipe and used the nutmeg.)

Needs more pineapple

Nutmeg or not, the good news is, once you mix everything together, realize it’s too dry, and realize you forgot the pineapple, it’s not too late to mix everything together. Add the pineapple and the nuts, and pretend it all went according to plan.

Now it’s time to chill the dough for an hour. Which is easier in some places than others.

We can do this. We have the technology.

After the hour is up, scoop them out onto cookie sheets and bake.

Yes, I purposely angled them to set off your OCD.

These are tricky as far as when to pull them, but they’re good whether you pull them a bit early (just brown on the edges) or let them brown a bit more. (I would aim for the middle ground there, but it’s only about a 1- or 2-minute window I think.)

Still can’t light this shot correctly. Maybe another 10 or 20 and I’ll get it right.

These are surprisingly subtle flavor-wise, but you definitely pick out all the hits. And the first comment I got was about how light they are, so +1 for sifting the flour for texture purposes.

The finished cooky/cookie

The Verdict: A-

I like them a lot, and have had to stop myself from eating too many. The pineapple and coconut could maybe be amped up, but I’m not certain it wouldn’t break the balance. A very good cookie, er, cooky.

1 Yeah, we keep our salt in a Cheez Whiz jar. What’s it to ya?

2 Aargh, now I wish I’d tried putting some bacon fat in there. I bet it would have worked with the pineapple and coconut.