A tender and light, yet rich and dreamy recipe for chewy coconut cookies topped with Hershey’s Kiss chocolate drops.
JUMP TO RECIPEI absolutely love coconut. And I know there are a lot of folks out there who don’t, but with the same ferocity they dislike it, I love it just as fiercely!
Years ago, I picked up a pack of coconut cookies from the grocery store bakery and fell in love with them (that doesn't happen too often, does it?). I’ve been keeping an eye out for a recipe that looked the same but never found anything.
They were chewy and dense and light all at the same time (sounds impossible, right?), had the perfect amount of coconut flavor and were studded with huge chocolate morsels (bigger than chocolate chips but smaller than a Hershey’s Kiss).
This Christmas, when I was doing my holiday baking, I decided to try to recreate the recipe myself! I found several recipes online that looked like good jumping-off points but the ingredients varied greatly.
Some had cream cheese. Some were made without flour. Some used sweetened condensed milk. Some used egg whites.
I decided to combine a little from each recipe (sans the cream cheese) and just hoped for the best! And guess what?? They were! They were the best!
I couldn’t find the gunga chocolate morsels my store bakery had used all those years ago so I decided to plop one Hershey’s Kiss in the center of each instead which was perfect and reminded me of the blossom cookies Mama made when I was little.
I think I might also like to try these with regular chocolate chips mixed in the batter and make a more traditional drop cookie too. I don't think you can go wrong with coconut and chocolate!
If you’re a coconut lover too, try some of these recipes!
- Lemon Macaroon Tarts - A perfect handheld dessert recipe made with light, chewy coconut macaroon tartlet shells filled with luscious, bright sweet-tart lemon curd topped with whipped cream.
- Sno Ball Brownies - An easy recipe for fudgy brownies, marshmallow buttercream and coconut just like the classic Hostess Sno Ball snack cakes!
- Old Fashioned Coconut Pie - The perfect recipe for classic, old fashioned baked coconut custard pie that's both creamy and chewy in all the best ways!
- German Chocolate Sheet Cake - An easy German Chocolate sheet cake recipe with a spiffed-up cake mix base and homemade caramel, pecan and coconut icing.
- God Bless America Cake - A scratch-made cake recipe made with crushed pineapple topped with a caramel pecan coconut icing very similar to German Chocolate icing.
- Preacher Cake - Tender, moist cake recipe with crushed pineapple, pecans and coconut with a cream cheese frosting. An old Southern tradition to make this cake when the preacher comes by for a visit!
- Italian Bakeless Cake - A layered no-bake dessert recipe with sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, pineapple, vanilla wafers, cool whip, coconut and cherries.
Recipe for Coconut Macaroon Kisses
Coconut Macaroon Kisses
Ingredients
- 1 14-oz bag sweetened flaked coconut
- 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg white
- 28-30 Hershey’s Kiss chocolates
Instructions
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper then preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine coconut, flour and salt in a large mixing bowl then toss with a fork until well combined.
- Add sweetened condensed milk, almond extract and vanilla extract then stir with a wooden spoon (or other sturdy spoon) until mixed well.
- Beat egg white in a small bowl with a fork until frothy. Fold egg white into coconut dough.
- Using a #40 cookie scoop (approximately 1.7-inch diameter), portion out balls of dough onto prepared pans about two inches apart. If you don’t have a cookie scoop, use two spoons to portion out mounds of about 2 tablespoons each of batter.
- Optional: Dip clean fingers into cold water then smooth any stray coconut pieces sticking up out of the individual mounds of dough to prevent them from overbrowning.
- Bake cookies at 350 degrees for 15-16 minutes or until the bottoms of the cookies are lightly browned.
- While cookies are baking, unwrap Hershey’s Kisses.
- Remove cookies from oven then cool for one minute. Press one Hershey’s Kiss candy into each cookie then cool cookies completely before removing from the pan.
- Store at room temperature in an air-tight container up to one week.
These look amazing and remind me of cookies my grandma used to bake! I'm totally going to have to try them soon!
ReplyDeletePaige
http://thehappyflammily.com
My husband is going to absolutely love these! I didn't get around to making any kind of blossom cookies over the holidays so I need to make a batch of these to make up for it!
ReplyDeleteI just thought of something… you can make for Easter and leave out the kiss and use 3 pastel candy eggs in the middle. Great bird nest cookies. I can wait to get started.
DeleteOh, mecy! These look totally awesome & so easy to make, too! :)
ReplyDeleteThese look awesome and my daughter and I love coconut chocolate anything! She is celiac so I wondered if anyone has tried these with almond or coconut flour? I’m thinking the taste woul be an agreeable addition, any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteThanks:)
No flour
DeleteI used regular flour, but i bet almond flour would be delicious. Especially since I didn't have almond extract, so I put double vanilla. I did substitute sweetened condensed coconut milk, and they were really good.
DeleteThese look so good. I also love coconut and try making things with it as much as I can. Now I have these sweet looking cookies to make. They look so good, I can't wait, to try them
ReplyDeleteCan you freeze these after they are cooked
ReplyDeleteI'm not 100% sure but I would think so. Let us know if you try it!
DeleteI’m actually making them right now they are baking in the oven smell so good can’t wait to try one or two or three, I’m actually making them for my husband but y’all know I’m going to have some!!
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. There are recipes out there without egg whites though.
ReplyDeleteDo you think I can leave out the almond extract? Is there a different 2nd extract you think might work similarly? we have a nut allergies in the house and these cookies look like the PERFECT swap-out for the wildly popular peanut butter kiss cookies (that we can't eat). Thank you so much for this recipe!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! All vanilla will be delicious!
DeleteCookies look yummy 😋 I do a version of these but only use one can Eagle condensed milk and bag of unsweetened coconut flakes. Bake and garnish same as yours . Great emergency party treat since always have ingredients 👍
ReplyDeleteI have made this recipe twice; there is too much liquid in this recipe. This is not a photo of the end results: the cookies are as flat as pancakes and not nested as they appear in the photo.
ReplyDeleteI baked the cookies myself and took the photos myself, so I can assure you these photos are of the end result. Are you using sweetened condensed milk or evaporated milk?? The mixture is so thick it's hard to stir so I can't imagine anyone thinking there is too much liquid.
DeleteThese cookies turned out amazing and are so pretty! I followed the exact recipe. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI love coconut macaroons! You mentioned chocolate chips so when I do my cookie baking for my exchange party I'm going to forego the kisses and add miniature chocolate chips to the dough. I think they'll be great!
ReplyDeleteThese look amazing! I think I would switch the Hershey kisses for a dollop of hot fudge or Cadbury chocolate spread.
ReplyDelete