Coconut Lime Pandan Cookies

Finished cookies before glazing

It's been a while since I've posted because I haven't felt there's been much interesting to share. Mostly that's my fault. I've been making food, sure. But mostly from recipes and without a lot of creativity. More macarons. Some cookies. Blah blah. Tasty, but not very interesting to all of you. I decided to start  having more fun with food this weekend.

Oddly, my initial ideas for a project had nothing to do with any of the ingredients in the title of this post.  I've been meaning to do a green mango pie for a while, so thought I might try that. Or maybe a tart or layer cake, which are also things I've been meaning to do more of. So how did I get to these cookies?

Eggs and pandan paste

Part of it was just trying to use what I've got around. I bought a ton of limes last week for some reason, so needed to use those up. My usual way to use up limes is to make cornmeal-lime cookies from the Flour cookbook, but my motivation in the first place was to do something more original this weekend. I also have a ton of dried coconut powder around (as one does), and brought back some pandan paste from my December trip to Singapore. (As a reminder, here's a previous post about pandan leaves, from which pandan paste is derived)

So with all of that in mind, I decided to try to mix a couple recipes together and see what happened. In the Sweet Spot, Pichet Ong often uses the trick of substituting some toasted coconut powder for flour in his cookies and brownies (which is why I have all that coconut powder). So I decided to substitute toasted coconut powder for the cornmeal in the cookies, but use the ratio of butter-sugar-flour-coconut that Ong uses, rather than 1 for 1 subsitution.

Green dough/batter

The original cookie recipe also calls for a teaspoon of vanilla extract. I used the pandan in place of that. It looked bizarre in the bowl with the eggs (see photo) and gives the cookies an odd green hue, but I figure that makes them a little more interesting. I also added sweetened shredded coconut to the glaze, instead of the lime zest that's called for.

The result is pretty tasty. The pandan and lime play off of each other very nicely. The coconut flavor is probably too subtle, but the sweetened coconut in the glaze accentuates it nicely. If I made them again, I might work on ways to increase the presence of coconut. I might also use a bit less baking powder, because these really puffed up a lot.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup unsweetened dried coconut powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
finely grated zest of 4 limes
2 eggs
1 tsp pandan paste
2 cups (280 g) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350. Spread the coconut powder evenly on a baking sheet and toast it in the oven until it is golden brown and fragrant, 7 mins or so. Let cool completely.

2. Put the toasted coconut, sugar, butter and salt together in a stand mixer with paddle attachment and cream until light and fluffy (5 min or so).

3. Add the lime zest. Beat for 1 minute or so.

4. Add the eggs and pandan paste, and beat for another 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides to ensure even mixing.

5. Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add these slowly to the mixer while beating slowly.

6. Drop the cookies onto a lined (parchment or Silpat) baking sheet and bake 20 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Cool on a wire rack, and glaze after 10-15 mins.


Glaze
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tsp water
2 TBSP fresh lime juice
2 tsp sweetened grated coconut

Mix all together, then brush onto cookies.