Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Another Re-Constructed Family Cookie: Coconut-Lime Milk Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

After making a family holiday cookie favorite with a twist this weekend by adding chocolate and molasses to Tassie’s Tarts to create Mini Chocolate Pecan Tarts, I decided to turn the tables on another holiday cookie tradition: the thumbprint cookie.

Our family usually makes thumbprint cookie dough with finely chopped chocolate in the dough, and fills the little thumbprint indents with a butter ganache – in other words, melted chocolate and butter. As delicious as that sounds (and is), I wanted to do something different. Obviously, I was going to keep the chocolate involved, specifically, a lot of creamy, Calleabaut milk chocolate.

But what else to add? Wherever would I find inspiration? Fortunately, Hannah over at Wayfaring Chocolate had just recently posted a review of a lime-coconut milk chocolate bar that sounded absolutely delightful, and is, of course, not available in the U.S. While the Australians may be able to get their hands on bars from The Curious Chocolatier, I can make a cookie that’s almost as good, and I did.

Coconut-Lime Milk Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies (as inspired by (oh it hurts to type this) Martha Stewart)

16 tablespoons butter, softened

½ cup sugar

2 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 ½ tablespoons lime juice

Zest from 2 limes

2 ½ cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

6 ounces flaked, unsweetened coconut, divided

12 ounces milk chocolate, melted and cooled

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, then add the yolks, vanilla, salt, lime juice, and delightfully tart lime zest.

Beat in flour and salt on low speed until combined, then chill the dough for an hour. Shape the dough into ¾” diameter balls, chill again for 5-10 minutes (until firm).

Distribute formed balls of dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and make indentations in each ball, taking care to create a full ring of dough around the edges to help contain the filling.

Bake the cookies at 325° F for 11-12 minutes, and let sit on a cooling rack.

Now on to make the filling. I needed to have coconut and chocolate in this filling to complete the concept, so I decided to make a filling that was JUST coconut and chocolate. I started out by using 4 ounces of flaked, unsweetened coconut to make coconut butter using advice from Heather at Heather Eats Almond Butter. First, I added this portion of the coconut to my food processor.

Then I let the food processor run until all the flaked coconut had been scattered along the sides. I repeated this several times, and after 10 minutes, was beginning to wonder if I’d ever get more than 25% coconut butter out of this, but kept my faith in Heather’s recipe. Finally, I was almost there.

After continuing to smooth the coconut butter a bit more, I added the melted but cooled milk chocolate, and ran this through the food processor until well mixed.

Then I manually stirred in the remaining 2 ounces of flaked, unsweetened coconut, and had a very tasty filling on my hands.

You could eat this stuff straight, especially while the chocolate is still liquid. I might have done such a thing with a portion of this. But I used most of it to fill the cookie indentations, and finish out the cookie-making process.

The flavors melded together quite well, and I’m so happy I saw Hannah’s review of The Curious Chocolatier’s milk chocolate with lime and coconut bar, since I’d have never put these all together on my own. The overall texture also makes this cookie easy to eat (as if I ever have a hard time eating cookies that involve chocolate), as the cookie and filling are also both soft. I certainly think this take on the thumbprint cookie is a keeper. We’ll see what my mom, dad, brother, and sister-in-law say when their portions of the batch arrive.

Do you like chocolate and citrus together? What is your favorite chocolate and citrus combination?

21 comments:

  1. I love chocolate and citrus!!!!!!!! My favorite would probably be orange.
    Those cookies look delish!

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  2. Ooh, I NEVER would have thought of having lime and chocolate together in a cookie! But it actually sounds (and looks!) pretty good! Goodness, I think I should make these!

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  3. @fitchocoholic Orange is great with chocolate - it seems to work really well with dark. Next time you make chocolate chip cookies, add zest from two oranges plus two tablespoons of orange juice (and two extra tablespoons of flour to maintain the texture). Easy and yummy.

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  4. @Kayla (Little Miss Healthify) Kayla, you should totally make these! If you want an easier version, you could just bake the dough with chunks of chocolate mixed in and press them flat before baking. That would be yummy, too!

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  5. I don't generally like citrus and chocolate. It reminds me of chocolate oranges that you whack on the table. I hated those.
    I wonder if I'd prefer lime with chocolate?

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  6. Not a big fan of most chocolate and citrus combos - normally hate anything chocolate and orange, but I KNOW I would love these cookies as I love a good lime coconut combo, and the filling sounds amazing. I would have eaten all straight from the food processor. Would have had to make a 2nd batch to fill the cookies.

    Glad you kept the faith long enough for your coconut butter to work. :)

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  7. @Samantha Angela Samantha, I agree on those chocolate oranges, it kind of tastes like somebody mixed Tang powder into grainy milk chocolate - yuck! Next time you make something chocolate, try adding some lime zest to half the batter/dough and see what you think. Would love to hear your thoughts.

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  8. @Heather McD (Heather Eats Almond Butter) Heather, I bet some of your choco-coconut butter on top of your avocado lime ice cream. YUM.

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  9. Those cookies look absolutely amazing!! I love that combo!! I just found your blog and I really like it:)

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  10. @The Hungry Runner Girl Thanks, glad you like it! This combo sounds strange, but the key is to depend on the lime zest instead of the lime juice so that it isn't so bitter.

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  11. When my great grandmother died I begged for her cookie recipes. I got a stack of somethings that were clearly not hers. Nothing was right. I think their secrets passed on with her :(

    I love coconut cookies. These look good.

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  12. Squee! Thank you for the shout-out, my dear! I'm ecstatic that my blog provided inspiration for these magnificent little morsels. Here in Australia, "thumbprint" cookies are known as jam drops and only ever involve, well, jam (jelly to you, I think). I've actually been considering trying a peanut butter version, but I think I might have to make your recipe first.

    After all, I did like that chocolate bar! :P

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  13. @foodjunk If your great grandmother cooked anything like most of my family members, her recipes were "guidelines" and she had little changes she made without telling anybody. Hence, I take great culinary license with everything because I know no recipe was ever followed.

    If you have a food processor or blender, you could easily make the chocolate coconut filling. And eat it with a spoon.

    If I sent some of these to you, would you take a pic of them with the Storm Trooper?

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  14. I love oranges but strangely have never had a choccolate orange. Your review certainly is not exciting me to run out and get it stat, that's for sure. I think lime adds another level to many things though! Your recipe looks delicious :)

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  15. @HannahThanks again for the inspiration, Hannah! That's actually the traditional thumbprint cookie in the U.S. as well, but we all play around with cookie bases and fillings to suit our own tastes. And the cookie police haven't come after us yet.

    Yet.

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  16. @Alina Alina, chocolate and orange can work really well together, but the chocolate oranges you break apart are kind of gimicky, so you don't really get very high quality chocolate or orange - plus, the chocolate is waxy and coated all weird to keep the pieces just so. Other chocolate bars and truffles with orange can be quite good, though.

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  17. Intriguing! Even though I'm anti-coconut (geez, I'm like a broken record with my dislikes), I'd totally try these. My German chocolate cake loving friend would go nuts over that filling!

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  18. @Jessica @ bake me away! Well, instead of the coconut, just melt 12 oz of chocolate with 4 tablespoons of butter. Or use macadamia nuts: Make about 4 oz of macademia nut butter using the same method, and add in some coarsely chopped macademia nuts at the end.

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  19. @Jessica @ bake me away! And lime+macadamia+chocolate=yum (at least I think...)

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