Coconut Snowball Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup + 1 tbsp (125g) butter room temperature

• 2 large eggs

• 2/3 cup (125g) oil

• 1/2 cup (125g) granulated sugar

• 1 lemon, zested

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 2 tsp (8g) baking powder

• 4 1/2 cups (560g) all purpose flour

• 1 pinch salt

• (300g) apricot jam

• 2 tbsp honey

• (250g) shredded sweetened coconut

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 385°F

• Place butter, oil, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest, and eggs in a large bowl. Mix with a whisk until everything is well mixed together and the sugar is dissolved. The mixture should be completely homogenous.

• Add the flour, baking powder, and pinch of salt to the wet ingredients, and mix using a spatula. Mix gently and slowly at first to avoid losing some flour on your work surface. Once the mixture has mostly come together, mix with your hands to bring the dough together to form a ball with the dough. The dough should feel soft but not sticky.

• Take a cookie sheet and line with parchment paper. Start forming your balls. Try not to make your cookies too big. Measure 1/2 - 1 tsp for each cookie as they will puff up in the oven. Try not to just eyeball the size, rather, stick to a form of measurement and roll swiftly in your hands to form evenly sized dough balls. Place your cookie balls on your baking sheet.

• Bake in the oven at 385°F for 16 minutes. The timing depends on the size of your balls. Our balls were roughly 1 tsp, levelled, each.

• Heat the apricot jam and honey on medium heat in a small saucepan until it liquifies, then lower the heat to low in order to keep it warm. Meanwhile, pour your coconut into a large bowl and set aside. Note that if your coconut shavings are rather large, you can pulse them lightly in a food processor to make the mixture a bit more fine. You still want some larger coconut shreds, but it helps to coat them more evenly if some of the coconut is fine

• Once the cookies come out of the oven, make sure to let them cool 5-10 minutes before assembling.

• Place 6-8 cookies at a time (depending on the size of your saucepan) in the jam mixture, off the heat, and submerge with the help of two teaspoons, mixing carefully and gently to completely cover them with jam. Let them absorb the jam for about 2-3 minutes. Scoop two out at a time, stick them together on their flat side, and then submerge in coconut shavings. Repeat for all the cookies.

• Store in an airtight container after you let them cool down for at least 20 minutes. They will get more soft and melt-in-your-mouth over time.