These German Chocolate Cookies are feature a delicious Coconut Pecan filling, they are soft and chewy, the perfect cookie to bake if you are feeling a little fancy.
1/3cupchocolatepreferably German chocolate, but you can use any
3tbspshredded coconut
3tbspchopped pecans
Instructions
Chocolate Cookie Dough
Start by beating the butter with an electric mixer for 2 minutes, until fluffy and creamy.
Add the Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk and sugar and mix to combine.
Then add the egg and vanilla to the bowl. Remember to scrape the sides of the bowl occasionally to ensure all ingredients are getting blended together.
Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt, mix on the lowest setting until almost entirely incorporated. I like to finish mixing the ingredients by hand with a spatula which ensures the dough isn’t getting overworked, and also ensures all ingredients from the bottom of the bowl are getting incorporated nicely together.
Transfer the dough to the counter and wrap it on plastic tightly. Place it in the fridge for at least 1 hour, you an also make it the day before and roll it out the next day.
Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF.
After 2 hours, remove the dough from the fridge, cut it into 4 pieces and work with one piece at a time, leaving the other pieces covered with the plastic, inside the fridge.
Sprinkle the counter with some flour, and then sprinkle some flour on top of the piece of dough. Begin rolling with a rolling pin, until the dough is 1/4” thick. You may need to add more flour to the bottom of the dough, so it doesn’t stick to the counter, but don’t be so liberal with the flour, you don’t want to add too much of it, because it can make the dough dry.
Use the cookie cutters of your choice to cut shapes out of the cookie dough, I used a 2” round cutter. Place the cookies about 1 inch apart from each other on top of a parchment paper lined baking sheet. They actually won’t rise or spread too much during baking.
Bake the cookies in the pre-heated oven for about 8 minutes, time baking will depend on the size of the cookies, smaller cookies will take less time to bake, and big cookies will take longer. Once the cookies don’t look wet on top anymore you can remove them from the oven, if they still look wet to shiny in the middle on top, keep baking them for another minute then check again.
Gather the leftover dough back into a ball, then flatten it out and roll it out, repeat cutting with the cookie cutters.
Repeat rolling, cutting, and baking with the remaining dough that’s in the fridge.
Keep the baked cookies in an air tight container for up to 4 days at room temperature. You can freeze the cookies for one to two months.
Coconut Filling
To make the coconut filling, add the sweetened condensed milk, shredded coconut, pecans, butter, and coconut milk (or heavy cream) in a medium saucepan. Cook the ingredients over medium heat, stirring non stop the whole time, for about 10 minutes, until the mixture is thick and falling into chunks off the spatula.
Remove it from the saucepan and pour into a bowl. Let it cool down completely, keep it at room temperature. The filling can be kept at room temperature for a day. If you place it in the fridge, might become too hard to pipe. You can always let it come to room temperature before piping or heat it up gently for about 5 second increments in the microwave.
To assemble
To assemble the cookies, place the coconut filling in a piping bag fitted with a round tip.
Pipe some filling on the bottom side of a cookie, then top with another cookie.
To decorate
Melt the chocolate in the microwave, then you can dip the sandwich cookies in the melted chocolate, or drizzle it on top of the cookies. While the chocolate is still wet, top it with shredded coconut or chopped pecans.
To store
Store the cookies in the fridge for up to 5 days, in the freezer for up to 2 months. It can also stay at room temperature for up to one day.
Notes
Rolling the dough: When rolling out the dough, try to use as little flour as possible, as that can make the cookies dry and tough from all the flour excess. If the dough is sticking too much even after adding flour, refrigerate it for a bit, or roll it between two sheets of wax paper.Pecan Coconut Filling: The recipe makes a bit more filling than you will need, but I am using two cans of sweetened condensed milk. If you halve the recipe and use just one can, you won't have enough to fill all the cookies. So you can do that if you want and just keep some cookies without filling, or make the full recipe and have leftovers, which is more than fine because this is so good you will want to eat it with a spoon. You can also refrigerate any leftovers for about 15 days, or freeze for up to 2 months, and use to fill macarons, or as cake filling.Cooking time: Don't over cook the filling, as soon as it's falling off the spatula into chunks, and you can see the bottom of the pan when running the spatula through the middle, you can remove it from the heat.