Cherry Coconut Cookies

5 from 24 votes

These cherry coconut cookies are soft, light and crispy. With red and green glace cherries, there are perfect for Christmas cookie box too!

Prep Time30

Cook Time12

Total Time42

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American

Servings: cookies

Calories: 75.1kcal

Preheat oven to 175° Celsius. Line your baking trays.
Dry roast the grated coconut until it is light and slightly browned. Let it cool down and then pulse in a food processor until fine. Leave aside.
In a medium-sized bowl, beat butter and sugar lightly. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat again until all traces of the egg are no longer visible.
Sift in the flour, cornflour, salt, and baking powder. Mix with a spatula (or a cake mixer) until the flour is well incorporated.
In a separate bowl, mix the chopped glace cherries with the coconut. Add the mixture into the cookie dough and mix with a spatula until the cherries are evenly distributed.
Form 1 tablespoon-sized cookie balls. Place them slightly apart on the baking tray.
Use a fork (dipped in flour) to press the cookie balls down. Press twice - once vertically and once horizontally.
Decorate each cookie by placing 2 small cherry cubes in the center.
Bake the cookies at 175°Celsius for 12 minutes until the sides are lightly browned.
Remove the cookies from the oven, let them rest in the tray for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container.

Unlike cakes, where butter and sugar must be creamed until light and fluffy, it is contrary for cookies. When creaming butter and sugar for cookies, it is best to not over-cream them. Suffice if both are mixed together until they are well combined.

Over beating will result in your cookies spreading too much during baking, so this is something worth taking note of, not only for these cherry coconut cookies but also for other cookies in general.

Since the glace cherries are sticky, it is hard to separate them after chopping, so you often end up with clumped chopped cherries. Mixing them directly into the cookie dough will not separate them and you will end up with unevenly distributed cherries in the cookies.

The best way to deal with this is to mix the chopped cherries with the processed coconut. Use your fingers or a spoon to break the cherry clumps as you mix them in with the coconut. This way, you get to separate the cherry pieces and when you add them to the cookie dough, they will not clump together.