Mounds of Coconut

Gluten free mounds! (yes, I'm hitting a food blog buzzword)

But it's true. There's no gluten in these.

There's coconut and chocolate though, and really, that's all that matters.

There are a few no-gluten people at work and I feel bad every week when they have to pass on the cookies, so I thought I'd give the gluten free thing a shot.

These are more of a candy than a cookie, but I doubt anyone will complain.

Chocolate Coconut Candy Cookies

Filling

• 2 c sugar
• 1/2 c milk
• 1/2 c butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 c ground almonds
• 3 c unsweetened shredded coconut

Coating

• 2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 tbsp butter

 

In a pot big enough to hold all the ingredients, combine the sugar, milk, and butter over medium heat. 

These are basically a variation on Taneasha's No Bake Cookies and she has some great tips there on how to make the "candy" part of these "cookies" come out perfectly. I didn't follow any of them. 

What?

You expected me to follow rules?? Seriously, I'm amazed I managed to measure the sugar and the milk. No comment on the butter.

Bring the candy combo to a boil and set a timer for 3 minutes. (I let mine go an extra couple minutes and I think that I won't next time)

After 3 minutes, remove the pot from the heat and pour in the vanilla. You can even measure it if you want to.

Stir that in and then dump in the almonds and coconut. Yes, I know Taneasha's tips said to pour this onto the dry stuff, but this way, there's only one pot to wash.

If you want pure coconut you can replace the cup of ground almonds, but I'm thinking it might be fun to go the other way and do these with ground almonds only.

I recommend using the 3 minutes of boiling to lay out parchment paper on the counter or a table.

Since my air conditioner is in the bedroom, and the air in the rest of my apartment is distinctly not conditioned, I moved my kitchen table into the bedroom and laid out the parchment.

Fill a small scoop by pressing it against the edge of the pot. If you have a melon baller that wold work. Do people even have melon ballers any more? Me, I have a tablespoon measure that is dome shaped. Look! I measured something!

Drop these little mounds of coconut candy onto the parchment.

They will start to set pretty quickly, but the stuff in the pot will still be hot. Be careful if you decide that you want to use your hands to try to shape them a bit.

You can't roll them, or they'll fall apart; you have to press them into shape. Which was more work than I wanted to do so I went back to the scoop.

Now, you could leave these things as is, and everything would be lovely.

Or, you could decide that they need some chocolate drizzled over top.

I totally forgot to take pictures of the chocolate part, but if you follow Taneasha's chocolate tempering steps you'll be just fine. Okay seriously, is there anything candy-related the woman can't do?

Mine came out beautifully. Damn she's good.

Drizzling didn't work out so well.

So I dipped.

And dipped

and dipped.

And managed to avoid licking my fingers between dips.

And if you're wondering what to do with the crumbles left in the bottom of the pot, and the last bit of chocolate in the bowl, I recommend balls. 

Some of the dips will come out looking like they were made by a 5 year old (actually, most of them will... or maybe it's just me),

but some of them will be lovely.

And all of them will need about an hour for the chocolate to set.

So, are you willing to try gluten-free recipes?

Hot Chocolate Cookies

And I mean hot.

I've seen suggestions to add a pinch of hot chili pepper to hot chocolate more than a few times. Apparently the spice of the chili will emphasize the sweetness of the chocolate much like a pinch of salt can. The suggestion has been attributed to Mexican and other central and south American cuisines and I've been craving tacos like crazy lately. No, nothing related between the taco cravings and the chocolate-chili, it's just that I've been craving tacos and the mere mention of Mexican food makes me want to run down the street to the much too convenient little Mexican place and get 3 tacos for 5 bucks.

I've been limiting myself to 3 tacos a week. Otherwise, I think I'd be eating there every night.

But this post isn't about tacos (I want tacos). It's about summer-themed cookies.

How is hot chocolate summer themed? It's summer, and it's hot. And I want chocolate.

And since I'm inherently lazy I figured that rather than come up with a whole new recipe, I'd just modify an existing one. So I started with snickerdoodles. And you've got two choices to use as your base: my snickerdoodle recipe or Taneasha's snickerdoodle recipe. Both are awesome. Need moar snickerdoodles!

Hot Chocolate Cookies

• 1 c butter
• 1 1/2 c sugar
• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 c flour
• 1/2 c cocoa
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp cream of tartar
• cinnamon sugar

Make sure the butter and eggs are at room temperature. If they're not, use one of Taneasha's awesome tips to fix that. Also, melt the chocolate. One minute and 30 seconds at 50% power, and then stir until it's smooth.

Cream the butter and sugar until they're fluffy and golden, and then stir in the chocolate.

 Beat in the eggs and vanilla until you have something resembling a soft buttercream icing.

In another bowl (yes, I used a second bowl, but I had an apprentice here to help me with the dishes;

and she also brought me herbs from her garden!!) stir together the flour, cocoa, cayenne, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

Since my apprentice is still working on the whole technique thing, she spooned the flour into the measuring cup and then levelled it with a knife.

Don't forget to sift the cocoa to get all the lumps out.

And yes, I'm serious, we are really putting cayenne in cookies.

Mix the dry into the chocolatey-buttery stuff. We did it in about three parts.

The dough should be soft and a little bit sticky.

You should be able to form it into a ball with only minimal amounts sticking to your fingers.

Give it a few minutes in the fridge if it feels too soft. It's better to chill the dough than to add extra flour; the cookies will be crumbly, rather than crispy-chewy if you have too much flour. You can wrap the dough and leave it in there for a day if you're planning ahead, but if you do, give it at least 30 minutes on the counter. If it's too cold, you'll need to put a lot of work into rolling the dough into balls, and since cookies are technically a pastry, you want to touch them as little as possible.

Cold balls plus too much handling equals tough cookies.

Preheat the oven now! 350.

Bust off a piece of dough about the size of a cherry.

Gently roll it into a ball, and then drop that ball into a small dish of cinnamon sugar.

Jiggle the dish and roll the ball around until it's completely covered.

Once you've done that a dozen times, and have a dozen sugary balls on a parchment covered sheet, bake them for 8 minutes.

Keep an eye on them. It's tough to tell when these things are overdone because the chocolate is so dark, but you'll definitely taste it if they are. Err on the side of underdone. Use a timer!

I was hopeful that these would work and holy crap did they ever! Chocolate chili cookies are total win. They aren't "hot" and spicy the way a savoury food is hot. They have their own shiney little bite. But it's a transient and sparkly feeling in your mouth. Like the sparks off a campfire: bright and a little bit burny, but they don't linger.

And with the sugar on the outside of them, they even look a little sparkly!

Perfect with an iced coffee!

What do you like to have hot in the summer??