Hey Joe

It’s 11 pm. The kitchen of my Glasgow flat smells sweet and warm. The oven was turned off 10 minuets ago but it’s still whirring, one long sigh out following the energy it expended to heat the sweet things I gave it to bake. Jess is sat on the sofa which suits perfectly the nook in our kitchen we stuffed it into a couple months back, like it was never meant to be anywhere else. Jess is dazed, but comfortably. Both feet planted on the ground, she’s sat upright in that perfect ‘how to sit at your desk’ kind of position, only she doesn’t look board. Her eyes are glazed over and she’s staring into the middle distance, at nothing in particular. Her left arm is limp at her side, but purposely placed where it has fallen and her palm is facing up. Maybe she’s doing some late night meditative sofa yoga? She knows I’m in the room, but when she speaks, she doesn’t talk to me exactly. The room pulls, gently, a sentence out of her mouth that she has been thinking while sat on our sofa that arrives like a spread of soft butter on warm toast in one easy and beautifully measured note. Here comes the words… ”…this is the best cookie I have ever eaten”. In her right hand she is holding a half eaten white chocolate, lime and coconut cookie. She’s not practicing sofa yoga. She’s just eaten something really good.

I’m pretty proud of this recipe. This is me copy writing it. I’m not normally very protective of my recipes, but this ain’t one to mess with.

Ingredients

Makes about 14 cookies, if rolled into 2inch ish sized cookie dough balls for baking

• 170g unsalted butter, softened
• 200g demerara sugar
• 50g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Generous pinch of salt
• Zest of 2 limes
• 60g desiccated coconut
• 200g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 150g white chocolate, chopped into rough chunks

Method

Using electric beaters (or a wooden spoon and an arm work out), cream the butter and sugars together until light in colour.

Add the egg, vanilla, salt and lime zest and cream, until lighter in colour again and fluffy.

Mix in the desiccated coconut, it will form quite a stiff paste dough.

Sift in the flour and bicarb and mix this into the dough. It will seem like it doesn’t want to come together. Until it does.

Tumble in the white chocolate chunks and mix them in until evenly distributed in the dough.

Using an ice-cream scoop or a tablespoon and your hands form 2inch ish (a bit bigger than a golf ball) sized balls of dough, putting them on a plate lined with greaseproof paper. Put the plate of cookie dough balls into the fridge and leave for 30 mins. Your going to ignore this step, I can tell, but please don’t. Chilling the cookie dough will help your cookies keep their shape in the oven. The butter will be firm when it hits the heat of the oven so it won’t melt and splurge out thin as it bakes. This means you will have a soft, chewy textured cookie.

While the dough is chilling, pre heat the oven to 190 and line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Place the cookie dough balls about 2 inch apart from each other on the baking trays, these cookies spread quite a bit. Bake them in batches if your trays are small, keeping one lot of dough balls in the fridge while the others are in the oven.

Bake for 8-10 mins until lightly golden around the edges but soft in the centre. Let them cool slightly on the tray before transferring to a plate.

Missing you already!! Realised I left Celebi on my bed at home so hope your getting some good forest vibes. Caitlin x