Coconut Macaroon Bars

I decided to start going through my cookbooks  and try some of the recipes I tore out of magazines, that I just seem to flip by, getting to my favorites.  I have had some of these untried recipes for over 10 years and I’m not getting any younger.  I thought I better start trying them out or I will need a magnifying glass instead of just my reading glasses to read them.

I needed to weed out the ones that were worth keeping and get rid of the ones that were not up to snuff.   The first thing I did was plug them into their perspective websites (can you imagine:  Bon Appetit  launched theirs in 2008 ! How did we live without them?) and see what kind of rating they got.  If they had a very good or excellent rating, then they were worth trying.

The first book I started on was my Cookie Book and this one was a keeper.

The original recipe does not call for chocolate in the middle but I decided to add it after reading other people’s comments.  It makes them alot more like Mounds, the candy bar, one of my favorites.  You can certainly omit that addition but, well, that’s up to you.

Coconut Macaroon Bars (adapted from Bon Appetit March 2001)

Cookie Crust:

1-1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

10 tablespoons butter, chilled (right from the refrigerator is fine) and diced

1 large egg yolk

2 tablespoons heavy cream

Middle:

1 cup of  chocolate chips: dark, semi-sweet or milk, whichever you like

Top Coconut Layer:

2 tablespoons flour

1 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

2 ounces  butter, melted and cooled slightly

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

8 ounces sweetened flaked coconut (I like Baker’s)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a 13  x 9 x 2 inch metal baking pan with canola oil spray.

In the bowl of your  food processor, blend the first 3 ingredients of the crust (flour, sugar, salt).  Add the butter and using the on/off buttons, pulse until mixtures resembles coarse meal.  Add egg yolk and cream and blend until the dough comes together in clumps, about 30 seconds.  Press dough evenly over bottom of prepared pan.  Bake until pale golden, about 15 minutes.  Transfer to a cooling rack and sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over crust.  After a minute or so, the chips should be melted.  Spread melted chocolate with a  small metal spatula, back of a spoon, whatever, over entire crust.

For the top coconut layer, place the flour, sugar, salt, eggs, melted butter and vanilla in a medium bowl.  Stir with a whisk until thoroughly combined.   Add coconut and stir with a rubber spatula until completely combined.  Pour top layer over chocolate.

Bake for about 25 minutes until golden brown on top.

Cool in pan.  Take a dull knife and loosen the cookie all around the edge.   Cut into the square size of your choice.

adding diced butter to blended flour, sugar & salt:

coarse meal:

add egg yolk and cream:

dough in clumps:

pressing dough into prepared pan:

sprinkling chocolate chips onto hot crust:

spreading melted chips over entire crust:

mixing top coconut layer:

pouring coconut layer over chocolate:

golden brown after 25 minutes in oven: