Oatmeal Coconut Chewies

As a kindergarten teacher, I acquire some odd things. I've collected small nick-knacks given to me by little hands, items left in cubbies, and various artifacts from the playground. Also, random food items; as part of the Christmas party, kindergarteners make candy trees instead of gingerbread houses. As the teacher, I request parents to send various candy items to school: white frosting, M&Ms, licorice, marshmallows, chocolate chips, coconut, etc. Kids get to frost pointy ice cream cones with green frosting and stick candy all over it. Of course, by the end students have mouths dyed by green frosting and they are hyped up from all the candy that didn't make it on the tree.

I had some extra coconut that I had no use for at school, so i brought it home to use. I didn't feel too bad doing this, because the kids really weren't that into coconut and it would be better used in my cabinets. So I come home and shove 3 bags of coconut in my cabinet, not having a clue what I should do with them. I scour the internet for different recipes and definitely found a few winners. Among them were these Oatmeal Coconut Chewies from Mel at Mel's Kitchen Cafe. These are tasty with an awesome chewy texture if you bake them just right. They come together quickly and are fantastic if you have coconut to use, like me!

Time: 10 min prep and 10 min for each tray you bake
Ingredients
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup softened butter
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup quick oats

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cream together both sugars, eggs, butter, and vanilla until it looks like this...

 

Pretty color for baking... :)

Dump in the baking powder, soda, salt, and flour and mix until it's all combined.

Finally, dump in the oatmeal and coconut and stir to combine.

It will be pretty thick, but mix it as well as you can.

Grease your cookies sheets or slap your parchment paper on there and drop the dough by tablespoons a couple inches apart. They will spread quite a bit so be sure to leave some space.

Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes. They should be just barely browned. If they brown too much they will be crispy and not chewy. In my picture below, I actually overbaked them slightly. Watch them carefully!

Let them cool on the sheet for about 5 minutes and place them on a cooling rack. These cookies are amazing especially if you just want something sweet, but not too sweet. Good stuff!

Original recipe at http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2010/06/oatmeal-coconut-chewies.html