I salivated over this Cook’s Illustrated article and recipe for weeks before I was able to gather the necessary ingredients (was there a pandemic run on coconut for some reason??). I had a very hard time stopping myself from just chain-eating these. They are very, very addictive!

You can see in the photo that the two trays baked for different lengths of time. The left-hand tray (12 minutes) is more blonde and the cookies were more chewy. The right-hand tray (14 minutes) is more caramelized and the cookies were more crunchy and “toothsome”. I think the mouth feel of the chewy cookie was much better, so for me it’s important not to overbake these.

It’s safe to say that I have a tendency to “strongly” bake things (I just learned that there’s a French pastry term for this: “bein cuit”). I like deep brown pastry, for example. But, there are cases where this is not a helpful inclination, and I think this cookie is an example. I mean, I don’t apply “bien cuit” to the Ikeda Christmas Cookies, though I do let them get brown on the edges where some recipes might call for taking them out prior to any browning (to preserve the color of the Candy Canes, for example).

Anyway, the goal of deep browning definitely does not apply to everything, and cookies are probably a categorical example.

[I have so much coconut leftover… ]