Piña Colada Cookies & Apricot-Cashew Drops

Cooking is not always glamourous. There are far too many disasters in my experience, and lately I've been on a roll with the disasters. Although sometimes entertaining, there's always something frustrating about slaving over a recipe, planning to take it to work or serve it to friends, and then having it inexplicably go awry. (Eleanor and her friends knew all about this: my great-aunt Margie once dumped an entire lasagna on kitchen floor immediately before a dinner party, then scooped it up and served it anyway because 'what they don't know won't hurt 'em.')

All that considered, I wasn't super excited about finishing the last two variations on this recipe sheet. There were 6 recipes on this page of Better Homes & Gardens from 1977, and when I made the first 2, they were good but just kind of boring.

I made the second 2 variations, and they were both complete disasters. Although they tasted great, they spread so much that they were all stuck together and ended up crumbling into bits as soon as I tried to scrape them off the cookie sheet.

So when I decided to make the final two variations, I figured it was a 50/50 chance they'd be edible. But I was hoping they'd work, because pineapple-coconut cookies? Yes, please. I avoided all of the things I thought could have gone wrong the disastrous time, and proceeded as directed, and what do you know? They came out delicious! ( It is not out of the realm of possibility that this is because I found Cookeen-- a new shortening substitute that is-- so far-- working better than Stork did for me!)

Weirdly, the piña colada cookies were a lot more boring than the apricot ones, and across the board everyone who tasted them agreed. The coconut and pineapple kind of blended into the dough and didn't really come across well, and the acid in the pineappe made the dough a bit grainier than I wanted it to be. The apricot-cashew cookies, though? Like manna from heaven! The apricots gave the dough an amazing chewiness, and the cashews added just the right amount of crunch.

Not wanting two entire batches of cookies in the house, I opted to take these into work with me. (This is no mean feat for me: Judson takes my blog creations into work all the time, but I am always really self-conscious about people eating things I made in front of me, so I kind of hate doing it. Also, the first time I brought a pie into my current job, a co-worker told me she didn't want any because 'she doesn't eat meat before noon,' and I was so thrown off I still haven't really recovered.) I kind of figured they'd get eaten, but that no one would really love them; I mean, apricot cookies? They don't sound nearly as exciting as chocolate chip, or even as classic as peanut butter. But lo and behold, my coworkers loved them, and both batches were gone by the time lunch rolled around.

Maybe now I'll be brave enough to bring my next cheesecake into my office... We'll have to see!

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five for the apricot-cashew cookies. I was disappointed I only got two of these, they were so good, and I can't wait to make them again.

3 spoons out of five for the piña colada cookies. They're still delicious and a fun and tropical take on normal cookies, but the flavours of the pineapple and coconut are a bit lost in the sweet dough, and I wanted a more coconutty flavour.

The recipe:

Pineapple-Coconut Cookies

the directions:

Preheat oven to 190C/375F.
Grease two cookie sheets.
Cream together sugars, butter, shortening, egg, and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, stir together four, salt, baking soda, and ginger.
Stir flour into creamed mixture and blend well.
Add coconut, pineapple, and walnuts and stir well.
Drop from a rounded teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
Use a teaspoon! A larger spoon is far too big and won't let the cookies rise properly.
Bake 8-10 minutes until golden brown, then remove from the oven, let cool for 30 seconds, and move to a cooling rack.

Yields 36 cookies.

the ingredients:

½ c sugar
¼ c brown sugar, packed
¼ c butter
¼ c shortening (or Cookeen if you're in Britain)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 ¼ c flour
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp ginger
½ c desiccated coconut (or more if using flaked coconut)
½ c drained crushed pineapple (or whiz some regular pineapple in the food processor if you live in the UK and can't find crushed)
½ c walnuts, chopped coarsely

THE RECIPE:

Apricot-Cashew Drops

THE DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 190C/375F.
Grease two cookie sheets.
Cream together sugars, butter, shortening, egg, and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, stir together four, salt, and baking soda.
Stir flour into creamed mixture and blend well.
Add apricots and cashews and stir well.
Drop from a rounded teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart.
Use a teaspoon! A larger spoon is far too big and won't let the cookies rise properly.
Bake 8-10 minutes until golden brown, then remove from the oven, let cool for 30 seconds, and move to a cooling rack.