5 Ingredients or Fewer

Coconut Jumbles

by:
October 27, 2011
4.5
2 Ratings
Coconut Jumbles
  • Makes about 90 cookies
Author Notes

Every Christmas when we were at my grandma and grandpa's house she would have plates of Christmas cookies. It felt like we could never run out no matter how many we ate. I can't fathom the hours she spent baking all of her cookies in the days before we came. I wish I could talk to her about it now that I'm all grown up and making cookies for my family. Everyone had their favorites and these Coconut Jumbles were at the top of my list.



—Dabblings

Test Kitchen Notes

I loved these coconut cookies. They are sweet enough to sate any post holiday meal craving and small enough to indulge in more than one. They would be wonderful with chocolate ice cream. I can't wait to share them with family and friends. Great recipe! —NWB

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 2 cups of sugar
  • 1/2 pound of butter; softened
  • 3 Eggs
  • 1 bag of moist coconut (14-16 oz)
  • 1 1/2-2 cups of flour
Directions
  1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. In a large mixing bowl cream the sugar and butter. ?Add in the eggs one at a time. Then add in the coconut and the flour. Only add enough flour to "stiffen" the dough. It will be somewhere between the 1 1/2- 2 cups.
  3. Drop by the teaspoonful onto a well greased or Silpat lined cookie sheet. **This is important: You really have to be a stickler about the teaspoonful thing. If you do heaping teaspoons your cookies will melt together into a big mess and it will take forever to cook. It's not pretty, don't make that mistake. Also, space them well apart. I fit 9 cookies per sheet and that worked well for me.
  4. Bake for 13 minutes until the edges are browned and the centers are golden.
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14 Reviews

Eileen
Eileen December 17, 2018
so I'm confused should I be using sweetened or unsweetened coconut?
 
JJ A.
JJ A. November 14, 2015
Just made these....yum! I used salted butter because there was no salt in the recipe, and added 1 tsp. of Mexican vanilla...just because I love vanilla. I also couldn't resist doing a little side adjustment. I took about 1/4 of the dough and added sliced almonds...about 1/3 cup and baked them off. They did not spread nearly as much as the straight coconut cookies, and they tasted divine. I used three different surfaces to cook the cookies...silpat - they spread the most on silpat, parchment - they stayed quite plump, and then a non-stick, dark surfaced cookie sheet....also stayed very plump. The silpat cookies look exactly like your photo. I can see me doing some more experimenting and painting chocolate on the bottoms or dipping one edge in melted chocolate ;>)
 
Olivia A.
Olivia A. December 18, 2012
I loved them! But I also wish I had tried the full recipe...I thought 90 cookies was 60 too many to try on my first go so I did just a third of the recipe. Imagine my surprise when I got macaroons instead of cookies! Delicious, although not what I had in mind (guess the dough wasn't wet enough?). Also added some crushed candy canes for a holiday appropriate touch.
 
hungrynsc
hungrynsc November 23, 2011
I'm showng my age by knowing the coconut was the sweetened version due to the hand written recipe calling for 1 can of coconut. when I was a kid coconut came 2 ways surrounded by a husk or in a can. There was no way my mother was going to deal with husks and hammers so the can it was.
 
Dabblings
Dabblings November 28, 2011
That's hilarious! My favorite part was on the back where my great grandmother had written "good luck" to my mom. That's because she was making these cookies in the days when you had to mix it by hand.
 
wssmom
wssmom November 12, 2011
Congratulations on the CP... these look so simple and sound so yummy! I love the photo most of all ...
 
Dabblings
Dabblings November 14, 2011
Thanks!
 
Ms. T.
Ms. T. November 11, 2011
Love the simplicity of these, and I love the photo too! Reminds me of my great-grandmother's handwritten recipe cards. She always skipped steps and ingredients, making it an impossible guessing game to make the cookies as good as hers were! Congrats on the CP :)
 
Dabblings
Dabblings November 14, 2011
Thanks! I love all of the handwritten recipes I have from my grandparents and great grandparents. They really allow you to have a tangible way of connecting to your roots.
 
luvcookbooks
luvcookbooks October 29, 2011
in luv with the photo, have some hand copied recipes handed down to me and luv coconut jumbles, the nyt had a good recipe for them in the magazine section a decade or two ago
 
Dabblings
Dabblings October 28, 2011
My mom put together a green binder with all of our family recipes. I am really lucky to have it in my possesion.
 
hardlikearmour
hardlikearmour October 27, 2011
Love this! I assume you use the sweetened flaked coconut.
 
Dabblings
Dabblings October 28, 2011
The recipe said "moist" coconut. I made the assumption by the reference to the 14-16 oz. bag that it was the sweetened flaked coconut. When I tasted them I knew I was right to make that assumption.
 
lorigoldsby
lorigoldsby October 27, 2011
Aren't those little scraps of paper the most precious things? I love the look of my grandmother's script--so elegant! Great recipe and these will go to the top of my list as well! "saved"