Holiday recipe: Coconut Almond Slice-and-Bake Butter Cookies

These cookies come topped with coconut chips and are a beautiful addition to a holiday cookie plate.

This holiday season, shake up your cookie tray with Nancy Silverton’s coconut-almond butter cookie recipe. She’s the James Beard Award-winning chef and baker behind Campanile, La Brea Bakery, Osteria Mozza, and Nancy’s Fancy gelato, as well as a renowned cookbook author whose latest book, “The Cookie that Changed My Life,” shares her secrets for perfecting classic American baked goods.

This recipe comes from Fred Chino, a baker from the Chino Farm family in Del Mar, near San Diego.

“Where the other butter cookies in this collection are decorated on the edges, this is decorated with a tuft of coconut chips on top,” she writes in her introduction. “They’re really pretty.”

Coconut Almond Slice-and-Bake Butter Cookies

This recipe yields approximately 42 cookies.

INGREDIENTS

1 heaping cup 133 g slivered almonds

2 oversized eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or pure vanilla bean paste

1 teaspoon almond extract, pure

300 g unbleached all-purpose flour (two cups plus two tablespoons)

60 g (14 cup plus 212 tablespoons) starch from potatoes

280 g (212 sticks) cubed cold unsalted butter

140 g granulated sugar (12 cup plus 312 tablespoons)

14 teaspoons kosher salt Diamond Crystal

12 cup unsweetened shredded coconut 120 g

2 x large egg whites

160 g unsweetened coconut flakes (22/3 cup)

Dusting powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 325°F with an oven rack in the center position.

Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and toast them on the center rack of the oven for 10 to 15 minutes, shaking the baking sheet and rotating it front to back halfway through the toasting time to ensure even browning. Remove the almonds from the oven and set aside until cool enough to handle. (If the nuts appear to be overtoasted, remove them to a plate so they don’t continue to cook from the residual heat of the pan.) Chop the almonds coarsely. (Preheat the oven.)

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed for 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl and the paddle with a rubber spatula whenever butter accumulates.

Add the granulated sugar and salt and beat on medium speed for 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the bowl as needed, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk mixture and beat on medium speed until completely combined. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the flour and mix on low for 30 seconds, or until almost no flour is visible. Mix on low speed to distribute the almonds and shredded coconut and fully incorporate the flour. Stop the mixer, remove the bowl and paddle from the stand, and clean them with the spatula, scraping the bowl from the bottom up to release any stuck ingredients.

Cover your work surface with plastic wrap. Divide the dough in half and wrap one half in plastic wrap. Form the dough into a 2-inch-diameter log. Wrap the log tightly in plastic, twisting the ends like a candy wrapper. Wrap the second log of dough in the same manner. Place the logs in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to firm up.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with one rack in the top third and the other in the bottom third of the oven. Two large baking sheets should be lined with parchment paper.

Put the egg whites in a small bowl to finish the cookies.

Unwrap and remove a log from the refrigerator. Place the log on a cutting board and cut it into 3/8-inch thick rounds with a long sharp knife. Place the rounds on the prepared baking sheets, spacing them at least 1 inch apart. (If the cookies become misshapen during the transfer, gently turn them in your hand to reshape them.)

Brush the tops of each cookie with egg white, then sprinkle with enough coconut flakes to cover each cookie (112 to 2 teaspoons), pressing gently to ensure the flakes adhere. (Any pieces that are not in contact with the egg white will fall off when the cookies are baked.)

Bake the cookies until the edges of the cookies and the coconut on top are golden brown, 12 to 16 minutes, switching racks and rotating the baking sheets front to back halfway through the baking time to ensure even baking. Remove the cookies from the oven and place them on a cooling rack to cool to room temperature. Powdered sugar should be sprinkled over the cookies.

Repeat, slicing, baking, and dusting the second log in the same manner as the first.