If you read the title of this recipe carefully, or looked at the pics closely, you’ll notice that these aren’t just your ordinary chocolate chip cookies. These are incredibly chewy, perfectly sweet, fat little Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies with an unusual ingredient that lends crunch and saltiness in each bite: crispy toasted tater tots.
That’s right, there are potatoes in these cookies. Potatoes are vegetables. Therefore this is a salad.
(Right?)
Anyway. You can’t immediately tell that cookies have crushed up tots in them. But you’ll definitely notice a little bit of extra texture – crunchy bits and creamy bites all together – that make these special. But to me, these cookies and this recipe are extra special because they’re from Dan from The Food in My Beard.
Long time readers of this blog know that Dan is one of my very good friends, and one of my favorite bloggers of all time. He and I have shared some fun adventures over the years – we’ve cooked together, hosted parties, taught classes, created many recipes, ate our way through different events, and we were even in an international TV show together!
Dan is a mad genius with the most creative mind, and he is always dreaming up all these mouthwatering ways to serve up comfort food. His second cookbook (!!) is coming out next week, called Tots!: 50 Tot-ally Awesome Recipes from Totchos to Sweet Po-tot-o Pie.
I received an early copy (you can pre-order here) and while I was tempted by tons of appetizers, I knew I wanted to make the tot cookies.
One of the best things about Dan’s recipes is that not only are they really easy to follow, but they’re also very customizable to make it your own. His original tot cookie recipe in the cookbook is for Salted Caramel Tot Cookies, and I just modified it by swapping out caramel with coconut.
(Confession: I also made the Salted Caramel Cookies and they are also awesome.)
Adding tater tots to cookies is similar to adding potato chips or pretzels, so fans of those kinds of cookies (“everything but the sink”) would appreciate these. But if you just like cookies in general (if you don’t, are you even human?) then I promise you that you will enjoy these.
Tots! will be released on May 15th, and I hope you guys will pick up a copy and make something tot-ally delicious.
Congrats, Dan!! <3
Chocolate Coconut Tot Cookies
Chewy chocolate chip and coconut cookies with an unusual ingredient: crushed up tater tots. Modified from the Salted Caramel Tot Cookies by Dan Whalen from the cookbook Tots!
Ingredients
10 frozen tots
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cups (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
- Preheat oven to 450 F. Lightly coat a rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray.
- Place the tots in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high, pausing ocassionally to stir, until defrosted, about 2 minutes. Mash up the tots until they are fully broken up.
- Spread the tot pieces onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake, stirring after 10 minutes, until all the tot bits are browned and very crispy, about 15 minutes total. (Make sure to break up any bigger chunks each time you stir.) Transfer to a plate and let cool. Turn off oven.
- Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
- Beat the butter and sugars together in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, until the mixture lightens in color and is fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs and beat until incorporated. Beat in the vanilla.
- Pour the butter mixture into the flour ixture and beat on medium speed until combined.
- Using a wooden spon, stir in coconut, chocolate, and tot pieces until combined.
- Use a cookie scoop (I used one about the size of a tablespoon) to portion the dough, and place the cookies in a freezer-safe container. Freeze for 30 minutes to an hour.
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Place cookies onto prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart.
- Bake until the cookies are pale golden all over and crispy at the edges (they wil be chewy and delicious in the centers), about 14 minutes.
I made three modifications from the original recipe: 1) I replaced the caramel candy pieces in the original recipe with sweetened coconut flakes. 2) I froze the cookies for 30 minutes before baking. 3) I also cut the original recipe in half and used a tablespoon-sized cookie scoop.
Modified from the Salted Caramel Tot Cookies recipe from the cookbook Tots! by Dan Whalen.