E's Toffee Almond Coconut Cookies

Consumed by holidays and the nesting behaviors that freezing rainy Sundays inspire, we baked double batches of three varieties of cookies yesterday. If you know us, please come help us eat our way out of Alex's apartment. We're kind of drowning in baked goods.

This week, we'll be posting recipes for two of the varieties. We accidentally overdosed our maple dough with too much flour, and it resulted in a biscuit-like cookie that only Alex's roommate, who eats indiscriminately, enjoyed. Too gross to post.

But enough with the negativity, it has no place in conversation about cookies. Our success stories include a delicious crystallized ginger cookie (which we will post sometime later this week) and E's toffee almond coconut crunch cookies. We first tasted these cookies at the Philadelphia Food Bloggers Meet-up; they are an original creation by E of Foodaphilia, and they tasted so delicious that we snuck some in our pockets to bring home. It's difficult to pin down one factor that makes these cookies so tasty -- you could easily say it's the heath pieces (which lend a satisfying crunch) or the coconut (which keeps the cookies moist and chewy) or even the perfectly flavored batter (which has a hint of vanilla). Most likely, it's the combination of all of these.

These may be our favorite cookies ever. Yeah, we went there: EVER. So I'm re-posting the recipe here, but you can also find it on E's blog here.

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 - 10 oz. bag toffee candy bits
1 cup oatmeal
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
1 1/3 cups sliced almonds

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the first mixture. Mix the almonds, coconut, toffee bits and oatmeal together in a large bowl, then mix them by hand into the dough. Drop dough balls (about 2 tbsp per ball, about 2 inches apart) onto a greased cookie sheet (or one lined with parchment paper). Bake for about 10 minutes, let cool, and serve.

Note to E: We found your favorite heath bits at the Fresh Grocer at 40th and Walnut!