pineapple coconut cookies
Ingredients
- 57 g / 2 oz pineapple juice
- 163 g / 5-3/4 oz diced dried pineapple *see Notes
- 170 g / 6 oz soft butter
- 71 g / 2-1/2 oz brown sugar firmly packed
- 57 g / 2 oz coconut milk powder
- 1/4 teaspoon lime oil or pineapple flavor optional
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg
- 241 g / 8-1/2 oz unbleached all-purpose flour
- 71 g / 2-1/2 oz toasted shredded coconut
Glaze
- 28 g / 1 oz coconut milk powder
- 113 g /4 oz confectioners' sugar
- 28 g / 1 oz pineapple juice
- a few drops of lime oil optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Add the diced pineapple and pineapple juice to a small, microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for about 1 minutes. Stir and set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter, brown sugar, coconut milk powder, lime oil (or pineapple flavor), baking powder and salt. Beat together until light and fluffy, scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Add the egg and beat until smooth.
- Add in the flour, microwaved pineapple and any juice and toasted coconut and mix until thoroughly combined.
- Drop the dough (approximately tablespoon size—a small cookie scoop is great for this) onto the baking sheets.
- Bake for about 12–14 minutes, turning the pans and switching racks to ensure even baking, until the cookies are lightly browned on the bottom.
- Cool the cookies in the pans for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- To make the glaze, sift together the confectioners' sugar and coconut milk powder, then whisk in the juice and lime oil (if using) until smooth. The glaze should be thick but pourable. Add a little extra juice if needed.
- Drizzle or pipe the glaze over the cookies, then top with a little toasted coconut and set aside to let the glaze harden.
Notes
I'm a big fan of dried fruit and while I normally buy only naturally dried or juice infused (usually from nuts.com—they're awesome and if their packaging doesn't make you smile there's something wrong with you), in this case, I thought the sweetened pineapple (the stuff you can find easily in the grocery store) worked best. First, it cut into small dice much more easily than the naturally dried, unsweetened stuff and small dice made for a neater cookie. Second, the natural pineapple didn't really soften up much in the pineapple juice so there were chewy bits in the baked cookies, whereas the sweetened pineapple had an almost jammy consistency—little bursts of soft tangy goodness. And third, this isn't a particularly sweet cookie so the sweetened pineapple gave the cookies a bit of a boost. It wasn't that the cookies with the naturally dried pineapple definitely were bad, just that the ones with the sweetened pineapple were better.
