I used the Food Nirvana recipe for lemon sugar cookies, modified, to make coconut sugar cookies. My first batch was hard from baking them too long and having a not quite right ratio of flour to sugar and butter. Now the recipe is fine. Even better, this is a very simple and quick recipe.

Note that you can use other flavorings instead of coconut to get whatever cookie flavor you want. For example, you could use almond extract instead of any coconut ingredient and add 1/2 cup of almond slices to the recipe. You might also make thumbprint cookies with strawberry jam or other kinds of fruit jams. Or, you could use a cup or more of small or crushed pieces of Heath® bars or Skor® bars to make a crunchy, chocolate delight.

This recipe makes three dozen medium size (3" to 3 1/2" diameter) crispy cookies. If you want, you can reduce the total baking time by about two minutes, to produce a more chewy cookie.

Ingredients:

3 cups of all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups of granulated white sugar

2, 1/4 pound sticks of butter, softened

2 tsp. of vanilla extract

2 tsp. of coconut extract (I use pure coconut extract that I buy online at OliveNation®.com)

1/2 cup of sweetened, flaked or shredded coconut

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

1 tsp. of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 extra large or jumbo size egg

Demerara sugar crystals to sprinkle on top of the dough before baking the cookies (optional)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk together the baking powder, baking soda, salt and flour in a medium sized bowl.

Mix the softened butter and sugar on medium speed for two minutes, using an electric mixer.

Add the egg, coconut extract and vanilla extract and mix until light and fluffy.

Add the shredded coconut and mix for one minute on medium speed.

Add the flour mixture one cup at a time to the mixing bowl, mixing on low speed for 30 seconds after each addition.

When all of the flour mixture has been added, increase the mixing speed to medium and mix for one minute.

Stop the mixer and move the mixing bowl beside a parchment paper covered 12"x17" baking sheet.

Use a 2 tbsp. scoop to extract dough from the mixing bowl for each cookie. Limit the amount of dough to exactly 2 tbsp. Space 12 of the dough mounds evenly on the parchment paper.

Flatten the dough mounds to about 1/3" thickness with the 2" diameter base of a water glass. First, grease the base of the glass with a film of soft butter, then place the base into some flour, then use the floured glass to flatten a dough mound. Repeat for the other mounds, placing the base of the glass into the flour as often as necessary to avoid having cookie dough stick to the base of the glass.

Sprinkle the (optional) Demerara sugar crystals on top of each flattened dough mound.

Bake the cookies for 12 minutes on a mid-level oven shelf. Turn the cookie sheet around halfway after the first six minutes to assure even baking of all cookies.

Remove the cookie sheet from the oven. Let the cookies cool for two minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack using a spatula.

Repeat the above baking steps for the remaining two batches of cookies.

Allow all of the cookies to cool to room temperature.

Store the cooled cookies in an airtight container, or even in a one gallon Ziploc® freezer bag, sealed, to keep them fresh.

Enjoy!