Tahiti Blondies

If you are a regular FoodNetwork watcher of the show Throwdown you might have heard of this Blondie by another name. In this particular Blondie episode, the challenger made Tahiti Blonde Sweeties. Ring a bell? I had wanted to make this dessert for a long time but never took time to find the recipe. I found this copycat recipe on cookiemadness.net a few weeks ago and just had to make it for Mr. Man’s family birthday party. Can you believe he is one? I know, me either. Anyhoo, these were really wonderful right out of the oven. Made me feel like I was sitting on a beach in a sunny destination. If you put one up to your ear you can hear the ocean.:)
Things to note. The description in the recipe for the toothpick test was brilliant. Very accurate. Next time I will not press so much juice out of the pineapple. I got a little over zealous and I guess I thought I was dealing with frozen spinach instead of canned pineapple and it was a little too dehydrated and got lost in the flavors. Finally, now you might want to brace yourself for this one, it had too much coconut. I know, such a shocker coming from the coconut queen but it was leaning too much towards macaroon for me. So I suggest loosely packing it in the measuring cup. Other than that I give it two thumbs up!

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Tahiti Blondies
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup macadamia nuts, lightly toasted and coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup Hershey’s white chips
8 oz can of unsweetened crushed pineapple, drained, and pressed dry
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 13 pan with parchment or non-stick foil.
Mix flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture, then the coconut, nuts, pineapple, and chips. Do not over mix or the blondies will be more like chocolate chip bars.
Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick test gives a moist crumb. Do not over bake. Let cool, lift from pan, cut into bars.

Chocolate Upside-Down Cake

My mother turned another year older this month so as always I made her a cake. Well, I made her 2 cakes. The first one was the famous Coconut Poke Cake with the sweetened condensed milk and the cream of coconut. My mother is not in the least choosy when it comes to desserts. Real food, yes. If it has sugar in it, around it, under it, it is for her. So I knew that my choice would not matter that much. I had never made the poke cake before so therefore, I have not had a lot of experience with cream of coconut. To my dismay, I opened the can and half of it was green. I quickly assessed the situation which was something like, “would I want to put that in my mouth.” The answer was no! So I turned it into a Tres Leches Cake instead. Now, if it had not been her birthday I would have brought her the cake and moved on. However, I felt bad that I had to substitute ingredients and was not just really happy with my selection. So, I made this cake. A Chocolate Upside-Down Cake.
Very fun to make, but it looks like a disaster in the prep. You make this brown water mixture that looks like beef broth on the stove and pour it into the pan. Throw in a bunch of ingredients consistenting of all different kinds of textures. Then you mix up a cake mix and pour it over the soupy mess. Fun stuff! Reminded me of my childhood when I would have pretend cooking shows.
The taste was great! A lot like a German Chocolate Cake but more chocolaty. I was not really happy with my picture of this cake. To me, it looks a lot like meatloaf with onions on top. It was difficult to plate this one up. I would scoop this into bowls with vanilla ice cream while it is still warm much like you would Chocolate Cobbler. Yum.

Chocolate Upside-Down Cake
1 1/4 cups water
1/4 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup coconut
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans
2 cups mini marshmallows
1 (18 1/4 ounce) package German chocolate cake mix
Directions
In a small saucepan, heat water and butter until butter is melted. Stir in brown sugar; mix well. Pour into a greased 13x9 inch cake pan. Sprinkle with coconut, chips, pecans and marshmallows.
Prepare cake batter according to directions; carefully pour over marshmallows. Bake at 325 degrees for 55-60 minute or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minute before inverting onto a platter.

Easy German Chocolate Cake

As I was cleaning out my pantry today, I discovered that I had 13 boxes of cake and brownie mixes. Thinking that was a bit excessive, I decided to use one of them. The recipe I came up with was for German Chocolate Brownies from scratch. But, I wanted to use a cake mix. So, I modified the recipe. I did away with the directions for the “from scratch” brownies and doubled the topping. Not only did I want to use a mix, I also wanted to use a new muffin/cupcake pan. So, I made an 8-inch square pan of cake and 12 cupcakes. I’m not a huge fan of the cupcake, and I’m not really sure why they have become so popular in recent years. I guess because they are small and cute. That’s all I can come up with. I find them to be top heavy, messy, and the frosting gets on my nose and makes me angry. But hey, other people love them and that’s great. If everyone was like me there would be very few cupcakes and way too much cream cheese and coconut in the world. However, I would like to try a Hi-Hat and a Black Bottom Cupcake at some point. Not today.
Things to note. Drop the topping in very small amounts all over the cake or cupcake completely sealing the edges. Do not let the cake show through very much or the broiler will burn the top of the cake. Also, this topping does not spread well with a knife before going in the oven and does not spread when inside the oven. Where you put it is where it stays.
I liked the taste. Very traditional German Chocolate Cake taste to me. Wonderful gooey, caramelized, toasted coconut and pecan flavor without a lot of work.

Easy German Chocolate Cake
Ingredients:
1 18.25 oz German Chocolate Cake mix
1 ¼ cup of water
1/3 cup of oil
TOPPING:
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
4 tablespoons corn syrup
4 tablespoons milk
Directions:
Prepare cake mix as directed. Pour into a greased 13x9-in. baking pan (or 2-8 inch pans or 24 cupcakes). Bake at 350° as directed on box or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. For topping, combine butter and brown sugar in a bowl. Add coconut, pecans, corn syrup and milk; mix well. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto warm cake; spread evenly. Broil 6 in. from the heat for 2-4 minutes or until top is browned and bubbly. Cool on a wire rack.

White Chocolate Macaroon Cookies

This to me is not a great name for these cookies. Macaroon. If you remember back, oh say, a few months ago I gave you a boring book report on Macaroons. Remember, how that they are not a cookie but rather a confection. That only in the United States do we put coconut in ours and other nations just throw together whatever they find or have on hand and call it a Macaroon. Okay, so I don’t like this name but we will go with it because today I do not feel rather witty or creative for some reason. Must be the weather, cause we have had every kind of weather today except for snow, but the day ain’t over yet.
Moving on quickly, so I made these cookies not once, but twice last week because they were loved by others so much. I personally think that they tasted like a Coconut Cream Pie in cookie form. Imagine with me, a pre-baked pastry crust, with a coconut cream filling, topped not with meringue, but rather whipped cream and toasted coconut on top. Yum. This was my favorite pie growing up. Now, there are too many to be a favorite.
The original recipe was from Betty Crocker and I decided to change it some. I did not put the melted white chocolate icing on top because IT DIDN'T NEED IT. That would have been so unbelievably sweet. Oh my, the center of a Valentine Chocolate comes to mind. You know the ones that have the pink or white creamy filling that you take one bite and if you are me you throw it away or some people put it back with a bite out of it. Never understood that. So, I skipped the icing and the sprinkles. The recipe itself was very easy since it used a packaged cookie mix as the base. Mine took about 11 minutes with 16 on each pan. Oh and I did not have to get out the mixer. Just elbow grease!
So go out there and make this cookie that I think needs a better name. If you think of one, just let me know. And if you need more sugar in your diet, you can find the original recipe here.

White Chocolate Macaroon Cookies

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup white vanilla baking chips
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat oven to 375°F. In large bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, egg, coconut, 1 cup of the baking chips and the extract until dough forms. Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown around edges. Cool 1 minute before removing from cookie sheet; cool completely, about 20 minutes.

German Chocolate Bars

As I am gearing up for Turkey Day, I thought I would make something not related to a pumpkin. I know, shocking. I will have plenty of those to come. I have not made Magic Cookie Bars in a long time, but I think that the two recipes are about the same. However, I enjoyed this one better because it was more like a brownie than a bar.
My Dad liked these cold and my Mom liked them hot. Me, well, somewhere in the middle I would say. Very gooey and rich, wonderful textures of coconut and nuts. The sweetened condensed milk and egg took on a cream cheese like taste and appearance to me. Give these a try; you’ll thank me for it.

German Chocolate Bars

1 18-ounce box chocolate cake mix

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1 large egg

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 large egg

1 cup chopped nuts

1 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan well with butter. In a medium bowl, mix together the cake mix, butter and egg, and press into the bottom of the prepared pan. The crust should not come up the sides. Bake for 7 minutes and remove from the oven. The crust will not look done.

While the crust is baking, in a medium bowl mix together the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, egg, nuts and coconut. Pour evenly over the warm crust, sprinkle evenly with the chocolate chips, and bake for 24 to 30 minutes, until the top is a light golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool completely before cutting into squares.

Martha Stewart's Cowboy Cookies

Texture, texture, and more texture. This cookie is full of them.
So the other day I made the long walk to the mailbox and saw that my Martha Stewart magazine had arrived. The first thing I always do is flip to the last page to look at the Cookie of the Month. Cowboy Cookie? So not Martha. I ripped it out of the mag and put it in my file. This week she did a segment on her show on how to make this cookie. The first thing she did was turn her nose up at the name. I’m not surprised. I can’t believe she didn’t rename it. *Someone’s slipping.* Anyhoo, once I saw her make it with her guest on the show it got moved out of the file and put front and center for Friday’s Cookie.
Like a lot of Martha’s cookies, it turned out flat. When she makes them they are not flat. When the average person makes them they turn out flat and a lot of people complain about this problem. Her reason is always that people do not have fresh baking powder which is true for some. I can assure you that mine is fresh. I use buckets of the stuff and it does not have time to expire in my pantry. The picture of the cookie in her magazine is misleading to me. Her cookie looks very fluffy and full of flour, when really it is more of a praline, buttery, cookie. I don’t know what makes the difference. I personally prefer a buttery cookie over a flour cookie. Yum. I did make only a half of a batch which was a wrong decision because these are so tasty I wish I had more to share with others.

Cowboy Cookies
from Martha Stewart

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light-brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
6 ounces semisweet chocolate, cut into 1/4-inch chunks (1 cup)
3 ounces (3/4 cup) pecan halves
1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat baking sheets with cooking spray, line with parchment, and spray parchment. Sift flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder into a medium bowl.
Beat butter and sugars with a mixer on medium-high until pale and creamy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.
Reduce speed to low, and slowly add flour mixture, beating until just incorporated. Beat in oats, chocolate, pecans, and coconut until combined. (Dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)
Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop or a small spoon, drop dough onto baking sheets, spacing 3 inches apart.
Bake until edges of cookies begin to brown, 11 to 13 minutes. Transfer baking sheets to wire rack, and let cool for 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks. Let cool. (Cookies can be stored up to 3 days.)

J's Coconut Cake with Lime Curd Filling

“You put the lime in the coconut....” Everyone sing with me now.
This was the second coconut cake I received for my birthday from my sister-in-law. I like to call it a coconut cake with a lime twist, and a wonderful Seven Minute frosting. Yum.
I remembered the texture shot this time.

J's Coconut Cake with Lime Curd Filling
This cake can be baked and assembled a day in advance, then stored under a cake dome at cool room temperature.
Ingredients:
2 1⁄2 cups cake flour
2 1⁄4 tsp. baking powder
3⁄4 tsp. salt
1 1/3 cups milk
2 1⁄4 tsp. vanilla extract
12 Tbs. (1 1⁄2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1⁄2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 jar (11.5 oz.) lime curd
1 batch Seven-Minute Coconut Frosting (see link below)
1 1⁄2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Directions for cake and frosting recipe are located here.

Shortgirl's Worth-the-Wait Coconut Cake

This was the first coconut cake I received for my birthday. Very, very, moist.

Sorry, I do not have a texture shot of this one. It is all gone now.

Worth The Wait Coconut Cake
Ingredients
1 18.5 oz yellow cake mix; plus ingredients

2 tsp coconut extract (optional)
2 cups (16oz) light sour cream

1 ½ cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract
16oz. container fat-free nondairy whipped topping, thawed

14 oz. bag of coconut
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 and grease and flour 2 round cake pans.
Prepare cake mix according to package directions, adding coconut extract if desired. Mix well and pour into the cake pans. Bake as directed. Cool 10 minutes in pan and then remove to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
In a mixing bowl, combine the sour cream, coconut, sugar, and vanilla. Reserve 1 cup of the mixture and spread the remainder between the cake layers. Stir the whipped topping into the reserved coconut mixture and frost the top and sides of the cake with it. Place in an air-tight container and refrigerate for 3 days before serving. Garnish with additional coconut at serving time.

Coconut Squares

We had a very busy weekend with the holiday and the enormous Family Reunion. BabyGirl learned what it was like to watch fireworks in her backyard, run through a water sprinkler, and play in a kiddy pool with her Daddy cause Momma can’t swim. Good times.
Well, I know I promised a non-dessert today but I will get to that at another time. Today’s recipe came from the 1972 Park Street Baptist Church WMU Cookbook. Lots of goodies in this book, and I have made a few things in the past. Anyhoo, I had coconut starting to fill up my pantry so I thought I should use some of it today.
I made a few adjustments for my taste. I started off by dividing the recipe in half and baking it in an 8 inch square Pyrex pan. I cut the baking time down to 18 minutes. I used butter instead of shortening. Why? I have no idea. I like butter. However, since I have never had this dessert it was a lot like playing with fire changing such an important ingredient. If I were to make this again I would use the Crisco to make a comparison between the two and I think the Crisco would win.
The taste was great. Very, very gooey. Almost praline like. Buttery, nutty, brown sugary goodness. The coconut does not standout nor is it overpowering. This dessert is like a very gooey brown sugar brownie with the extra added textures of nuts and coconut.

Coconut Squares
½ cup shortening (melted)
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
Mix well and add:
1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 can or 1 ½ cups coconut
¾ cup nuts, chopped

Mix well and bake in greased 9x13 pan at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Do not over bake. Cool and cut into squares.

Coconut Macaroons

Happy National Macaroon Day! It is really on May 31th, but better early than late. Well, to be totally honest, I looked at my calendar wrong and thought it was today. But, now that you have the recipe then you can celebrate on the actual holiday.
My husband asked me something interesting as we were testing out the cookies today. He wondered if a Macaroon is always coconut. I did not have an answer for him, but now I do. No. Macaroons can be made with ground or powdered nuts, coconut, cocoa, potato starch, corn starch, peanut butter, poppy seeds, toasted sesame seed paste, etc.They are cookies or confections, or crosses between the two, depending on where they are made. North America prefers coconut over the other choices. The macaroon is a close relative of the meringue which is another tasty treat. So now we all know more about this wonderful baked good. Don’t you feel a little bit smarter? As you can see, BabyGirl is nuts about coconut!

Coconut Macaroons
1 14 oz package sweetened coconut (5 1/3 cups)
2/3 cup sugar
6 tablespoons flour
¼ teaspoon salt
4 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix coconut, sugar, flour and salt in a large bowl. Stir in egg whites (not whipped) and vanilla extract until well blended. Drop by tablespoonful onto greased cookie sheets.
Bake 325F for 20 minutes or until edges of cookies are golden brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheets to wire racks. Cool completely.

Sweet Hands.