Oatmeal Coconut Crisps

These oatmeal coconut crisps produce a serious batch of cookies. The dough is loaded with quick-cooking oats and shredded coconut, held together by a rich base of brown sugar, white sugar, and a generous amount of butter. The result is a cookie with crisp, caramelized edges and a chewy center.

Fair warning: this dough gets incredibly stiff once the oats and coconut go in. A stand mixer with a paddle attachment handles it without complaint, but mixing by hand takes real effort. Don’t try a hand mixer for the final stage unless you want to burn out the motor.

Creaming the butter and both sugars until truly fluffy is where the texture magic happens. That aeration gives the cookies their spread and crunch. Adding eggs one at a time keeps the emulsion smooth so you don’t end up with a greasy, flat cookie.

Drop them small. Teaspoonfuls spread out as they bake, and the thin edges crisp up while the thicker centers stay soft.

Chef Tips

• Space the dough drops a full 2 inches apart. These spread more than you’d expect.
• Bake on the shorter end (10 minutes) for chewier cookies, closer to 15 for truly crisp ones that snap when you break them.
• Grease the baking sheet well. The high sugar content means these stick aggressively to ungreased pans.
• Cool completely on a rack. They firm up as they cool, so don’t judge texture straight from the oven.

Variations

• Three-way split: Divide the dough in thirds and mix extra coconut into one, raisins into another, and chopped nuts into the third for variety from a single batch.
• Chocolate chip add-in: Fold chocolate chips into a portion of dough for an oatmeal coconut chocolate chip hybrid.