Lemon and Coconut ??

Seeing as I have an enormous amount of coconut and lemon sitting around, I figured I needed to use them up. Of course, who doesn’t need cookies in their house, anyway? I have the lemons left over from my Daring Baker’s Challenge of lemon meringue pie, and the coconut leftover from my attempts at coconut bread. So, I turned to my most recent baking book find, The Great Big Butter Cookbook. I have so many dog-eared pages in that book, it’s hard to pick which will be the next adventure. However, my belly settled upon the Lime-Thai Snowball Cookies. I mean, yummy!! I adore anything with citrus, anyway, and seemingly coconut and butter will only push them right over the edge of delight! 

I began by making the recipe as stated, but wasn’t overly thrilled. They were good, but I used the lime oil that the recipe suggests, fearing that it would add a bitter note. Yep, it did. They were okay, given that you’re snowed in to your house and the thought of going to the store would require you to dig a tunnel just to get there. :) I highly suggest ignoring the oil and using the fresh juice instead. I keep zest and juice in the freezer at all times, but I managed to get low on juice (enter ashamed face), so I went for the lime zest and oil mix. Like I said, good, but could be better! So, that’s when I decided to go for the lemon…  

Of course, if I’m going to switch to the lemon, I wanted to make sure I used fresh juice (I did). Also, I felt that on the lime cookie, the coconut tasted a little raw, so I decided to lightly toast the coconut for round two. Definitely an improvement! The lemon cookies are by far superior…but, I feel it’s fair to say it’s because of the toasted coconut and fresh juice, not necessarily because of the citrus choice. In fact, I think that these cookies have great possibilities to adjust many other flavors (orange citrus, almond extract, peppermint, vanilla, chocolate…). It’s an awesome, super easy, basic butter cookie, and the last-shake in the coconut-sugar blend makes it look beautiful. It is a great cookie to stand proud at any cookie exchange. Enjoy. Sharing Optional! 

Coconut-Lime Thai Snowballs from The Great Big Butter Cookbook
Makes 48 cookies using Oxo Small Cookie Scoop

• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 ounces (1 cup) confectioner’s [powdered/icing] sugar
• 1 teaspoon lime oil or 2 T lime juice
• 1 1/2 t finely grated lime zest
• 1/4 t table salt
• 9 ounces [1 3/4 cup + 1 T] all-purpose flour
• 3 ounces (1 cup) unsweetened shredded coconut (medium shred)

Coating

• 3 ounces (1 cup) unsweetened shredded coconut (medium shred)
• 4 ounces (1 cup) confectioner’s [powdered/icing] sugar
• 1 1/2 t finely grated lime zest
  
• 20 grams (2 T) cornstarch, sifted

1. Preheat oven to 350º F with the racks set on the lower/upper thirds of oven.
2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the lime oil [I highly suggest the fresh-squeezed juice] and beat to combine. Gently fold in the zest, salt, flour and coconut. Blend well.
3. Lightly flour your hands and roll the dough into one-inch balls [or use the Oxo Small Cookie Scoop]. Place the balls about 1 1/2-inch apart on baking sheet and bake until the cookies are puffy, not browned. Allow cookies to cool about five minutes.
4. Meanwhile, combine the coating ingredients in a quart- or gallon-sized plastic bag [I chose to use a lidded-container]. While the cookies are still warm, carefully toss them in the coating. Place the cookies on a wire rack to cool completely.