Chocolate Cookies – New Zealand Style!

Tiny, crunchy chocolate and coconut cookies with a delicious chocolate glaze- SO good!

I love food blogs- particularly ones that major in fun desserts!  One of my favorite Saturday morning activities is to read through all my favorite blogs and enjoy the photos.  This past weekend Aimee from Clever Muffin posted a recipe that I simply HAD to try.  This doesn’t happen very often, as I prefer creating to copying–but the photos of these little cookies just screamed MAKE ME!!!  So I did.

I love them– truly LOVE these cookies.  They are so light and crunchy and cocoa-y.  I will be adding these to my permanent recipe collection and making them again….soon.

These are called Afghan Biscuits.  One of the things I love about Aimee is that she’s from Australia and she calls cookies “biscuits”, powdered sugar “icing sugar”and her mom her “mum”.  I also love that the world is such a small place that I can get a recipe from a friend in Australia and here I am 3 days later eating New Zealand-ish “biscuits” in my living room.  So. Much. Fun.

Anyway, Aimee has the history of these cookies on her blog.  She says they were invented in the 1940’s, possibly as a means to send cookies to loved ones away at war in WW2.  She says they “post” (so cute!) beautifully.  I know several of you have ones you love far away from you– here’s a great idea for a cookie that keeps well in the mail.   Are you ready for the recipe???  I’m really excited to share it with you!

INGREDIENTS:

Cookies:

• 14 T. butter -softened (I know, awkward measurement…had to convert 200 grams for you though and the alternatives were 1.76 sticks of butter OR 0.88 cups of butter….so yeah….you choose.)
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 2 T. cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 c. flour
• 1 c. lightly crushed cornflakes
• 1 c. shredded coconut

Icing:

• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 2 T. cocoa powder
• Water (1-3 T.) to make a good spreading consistency.
• Almond slivers (to garnish)

DIRECTIONS:

• Heat oven to 250 degrees.
• Place 1 c. shredded coconut on a small cookie sheet and place in oven for 10-15 minutes until it is dried and crunchy— not browned– just dry and crunchy.  Remove from oven and cool.
• When coconut is cool, use your hands to crush it up  into smaller pieces, set aside.
• Heat oven to 350 degrees.
• Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
• Use an electric beater to cream sugar and butter together, add vanilla.
• Add flour, cocoa and coconut, beating until well combined.
• Add cornflakes and beat on low speed until just combined.
• Use a small cookie scoop to spoon batter onto parchment paper.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 12-16 minutes.
• Allow cookies to cool before frosting.
• Make icing by combining  powdered sugar, cocoa and water until you have a smooth glaze that doesn’t run off the edges of the cookies.
• Top cookie with icing and one almond sliver.

My thoughts:  These are SO good.  SOOOOOOOOOO good.  Many thanks to Clever Muffin for the inspiration!  Go check out her blog– you will love it!  Enjoy!!!!!!  -r