A Sweet Coconut Treat: Spending March with Trailer Food Diaries Cookbook, Austin Edition, Vol. 3

For the entire month of March, I'm making & writing about recipes from Trailer Food Diaries Cookbook, Austin Edition, Volume 3 from History Press.  This cookbook features stories about & recipes from some of Austin's best food trucks.

To start my March off, I decided to try out the Big Chewy Coconut Cookies recipe from Little Big Mike's.  I have a love for baking & an even bigger love for anything sweet, so this was the perfect beginning for my Trailer Food Diaries Cookbook journey.

Big Chewy Coconut Cookies

After initially reading the recipe, I was a little skeptical that I could pull these off well.  It calls for baking the cookies for 20 minutes.  Really? I do good to watch the oven for 8 minutes...I was a little afraid these cookies were going to be toast.  It also calls for mixing the fats & sugar until smooth with a wooden spoon.  I've never heard of doing that & I wasn't sure my arm could keep stirring for that long.  For this job, I enlisted my husband Andrew to be the muscle.  And he rocked it. (Thanks honey!)  But I knew given my fondness for coconut & cookies made with shortening (you KNOW that'll be tasty!) I had to give these a shot.  

The recipe started out easy enough by measuring the dry ingredients.

And what's cookies without eggs & vanilla?

Things got interesting when it called for mixing the sugar & fats separatly with a wooden spoon.  Until smooth!

But thanks to Andrew's handy-work, that was no problem!

After mixing everything in & adding the star (coconut of course!), they were ready for some heat.

I am so glad that I didn't let my worries keep me from baking up these coconut gems.  They came out soft & chewy, but with just a little bit of crunch around the edges & enough coconut goodness to make them absolutely delicious.  They reminded me of a macaroon but without that overly sweet stickiness.  These are definitely being entered into my regular cookie baking rotation.  

Big Chewy Coconut Cookies

I can't wait to tell you about the next recipe I try from Trailer Food Diaries Cookbook, Austin Edition, Volume 3 from History Press.  So far, my March has been mighty tasty!