Magical Coconut Cookie Bars - May 4, 2011

Allyson's birthday was this week, so I offered to let her pick what was on the menu for baking. Her request was for cookies, or other single serving treats that we could share at gaming. Since she didn't have a particular recipe in mind, we flipped through the Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar until we found Magical Coconut Cookie Bars. This recipe required a quick trip to the supermarket to get coconut milk, sweetened coconut  and graham crackers, but the treat was too tempting to pass up.

Once we returned, Allyson set to crumbling graham crackers, and mixing them with margarine  while I heated the coconut milk and sugar on the stove. The recipe instructs you to heat the milk and sugar first, then let it cool while you make the crust, and this is one time where I think that having more hands may have had a negative, rather than positive, effect on the end product.

Coconut Milk and Brown Sugar

Graham Cracker base for crust

We lined a 13 x 9 x 2 inch pan with parchment paper, and spread the crumb crust in the bottom. At first it looked like we wouldn't have enough, but with some finessing with the back of a spoon and fingertips got a fairly good coverage. Next came the milk and sugar mix which, even though we put it in the refrigerator for about five minutes, was still warm. This was topped with a bag of chocolate chips, which sank into the liquid, shredded coconut, and finally chopped pecans.

Adding the liquid - probably too warm, but it still worked out okay.

We checked the cookie bars at 20 minutes and again at 25. At 28 minutes we could tell the liquid was pretty solidified, and though the coconut wasn't golden, it was certainly toasting in the heat. The bubbles in the mix that had been around the edges at 20 minutes covered the treat, so we pulled them out to cool.

I let the pan cool on my stove over night, then placed them in the fridge until we met again on Friday evening. The cookie bars were a bit less solid - more gooey - than I expected, but were delicious none-the-less. I would be interested to determine if there were a way to have the bottom retain any crispness, rather than absorbing the milk to create a soft base. I don't know if this was a factor of the milk/sugar combo being too warm, or if this is just the nature of the recipe.

The finished product (pre-slicing)

All in all, the Magical Coconut Cookie bars were what they promised to be - full of tasty coconut goodness. 



New tools/ ingredients:  graham crackers
Recipes used: Magical Coconut Cookie bars, Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar pg 121
Co-bakers:  Allyson
Date: May 4, 2011