By the Batch - Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies

Welcome once again to By the Batch, my weekly feature of one of the recipes in Martha Stewart's Cookies. Last week's installment was from the "Sandy & Crumbly" category so this week I went in a different direction with "Chunky & Nutty" and Chris' request, Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies.

According to Martha:

Two kinds of chocolate (cocoa powder and white chocolate chunks) plus walnuts and coconut equals one tempting treat. Pecans can be substituted for some or all of the walnuts.

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
2 cups white-chocolate chunks

1 3/4 cups sweetened flaked coconut
1 3/4 cups coarsely chopped walnuts

A note about salt - I have never been able to find coarse salt in the grocery store except in large bags so I substitute table salt and haven't had any complaints. I'll be honest that I'm not entirely sure what sort of difference using coarse salt might actually make but I'm not too concerned as long as the cookies taste good. However, if you'd care to enlighten me then please leave me a comment!

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put butter and sugars in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Mix in eggs, 1 at a time. Stir in vanilla.

Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl.

Mix into butter mixture on low speed until well combined. Stir in chocolate, coconut, and walnuts.

Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop batter onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 2 inches apart. Flatten slightly.

Bake until set, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks 2 minutes. Transfer cookies on parchment to racks to cool completely.

According to Sarah:

Another really easy recipe. I used my stand mixer but you could easily mix these by hand if you prefer. For the dry ingredients, if you don't have a sifter (I don't) just use a whisk to remove any lumps before you mix in with your wet ingredients. The final dough was pretty sticky but not unmanageably so; to flatten the cookies on the baking sheets I just pressed them down with a little piece of parchment paper. The recipe was supposed to yield about 5 dozen cookies but I only got about 3 1/2 dozen using a standard sized cookie scoop.

I'm not a big fan of coconut so I'll rely on Chris' judgement. He LOVES these cookies and is already pressing me to commit to making them for him again soon. So if you're a coconut fan then these are a winner!



P.S. Don't forget to enter my handmade card giveaway before the Thursday deadline!