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Cocoanut Cream Cookies
2 eggs 1/2 cup shredded cocoanut 1 cup sugar 3 cups flour 1 cup thick cream 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt Beat eggs until light, add sugar gradually, cocoanut, cream, and flour mixed and sifted with baking powder and salt. Chill thoroughly, toss on a floured board, pat, and roll one-half inch thick. Sprinkle with cocoanut, roll one-fourth inch thick, and shape with a small round cutter, first dipped in flour. Bake on a buttered sheet in a moderate oven.
A plain rolled cookie enriched with cream rather than butter, with coconut both mixed in and laminated between two rollings. The dough must be cold to survive that double rolling.
- Moderate ovenRead as roughly 350-375F. These are thin, sugar-light rounds; check them early, at around 8 to 12 minutes, and take them out when the edges just color.
- Thick creamThis means heavy or whipping cream, used liquid and unwhipped. It is the main fat in the dough, so half-and-half or light cream will give a drier, more crumbly cookie.
- CocoanutShredded coconut of this period was generally unsweetened and drier than today's bagged sweetened flake. Unsweetened desiccated or shredded coconut is the closer match; if you use sweetened, you may want to cut the sugar somewhat.
- The double rollThis is the hinge. Roll to half an inch, scatter coconut over the surface, then roll down to a quarter inch so the coconut is pressed into the sheet rather than sitting loose on top. Rolling in one pass gives a different, plainer cookie.
- Chill properlyCream-based dough turns sticky fast. An hour in the refrigerator, wrapped, and work with half the dough at a time while the rest stays cold.
- Leavening and saltThree teaspoons of baking powder to three cups of flour works out to one teaspoon per cup, a standard proportion; reduce it slightly if you prefer a less risen cookie. A full teaspoon of salt reads high to modern taste but suits unsweetened coconut.
- Buttered sheetParchment does the same job with less spread and no scorching from butter solids on a bare pan.
- YieldDepends entirely on the size of the cutter; expect several dozen small rounds from this quantity of dough.