Chocolate & Roasted Coconut Chip Cookies

As any loyal Trader Joe's shopper knows, they have some interesting/weird/amazing stuff. A lot of which is chronicled on the hilarious and awesome What's Good At Trader Joe's. I'm mad I didn't think of that idea first. The marketing people from Trader Joe's and Sephora must have gone to the same seminar on impulse buys at the registers because they each have the best. Peanut butter filled pretzels? Yep. Banana chips? Okay. Chocolate covered whatevers? Definitely. Did anyone else notice the roasted coconut chips they've had for the past few weeks? I did.

They are only $1.99 so I tossed a bag in my cart two Sundays ago on a whim. I always bring a list to the grocery store and I'm really good at sticking to it. But sometimes there are exceptions. These are delightful. They're sweet and a little bit salty and the coconut flavor is multiplied by 10 because they're soaked in coconut milk and then roasted. YUM. My first thought when I tasted them was, "these need to be in some cookies, like, now." So that is exactly what I did.

Trader Joe's also happens to have dark chocolate coconut bonbons that are insanely delicious so I thought a dark chocolate chunk cookie with roasted coconut chips would be just like them. I could recite what goes into a standard chocolate chip cookie in my sleep, but I forget the measurements sometimes. I googled quickly on Saturday afternoon and thought I was all set. And then this happened:

I forgot an entire CUP of flour. DUH. They were sort of edible, but I wasn't about the give those to anyone!

Here is the recipe with nothing forgotten. This makes 4 dozen.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter (at room temp.)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs (at room temp.)
2 cups chocolate chunks or chips (I used semi-sweet)
1 cup roasted coconut chips

Pre-heat your oven to 375. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl and set aside. Cream the butter, sugars, and vanilla using an electric mixer until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time making sure each is well incorporated. With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients little buy little until the dough comes together. Stir in the chocolate and coconut chips and scoop level tablespoons of the batter on non-stick baking sheets. Bake for about 10 minutes until the cookies are golden brown. Let them cool for a minute or so on the baking sheets and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Eat many at one time.

I gave the coconut chips a rough chop so they were about the same size as a chocolate chip.



Now that's more like it! Let this serve as a friendly reminder that baking has to be precise or else disaster ensues.

These are YUMMY. The coconut chips are a little more subtle than I expected, but you can definitely tell that they're there. Putting them in the oven again makes the sugars in them caramelize just a little bit more so they're even more toasty and delicious. I definitely prefer roasted coconut chips to nuts.

I brought around two dozen of these to work Monday morning and they barely lasted an hour. So I think they turned out pretty well! The roasted coconut chips are obviously unique to Trader Joe's, but they probably wouldn't be hard to replicate on your own. Or try some shredded coconut that's been toasted in the oven for a bit. I don't see how you could go wrong with either option!

What's your favorite cookie add in? And if you shop at Trader Joe's, what's the most bizarre or surprisingly delicious thing you've found?