Weetbix Coconut Cookies

What do you do when your entire family hates Weet-bix because it is utterly tasteless, but it is too expensive to be thrown away? Make cookies out of it of course! 

Although these highly nutritious breakfast cereal bars are too bland for our palate, their crunchy and flaky texture makes a good coating on cookies. I adapted a recipe that was meant for cornflake cookies from The Essential Baking Cookbook and it turned out great. However, I did overbaked them a little, as weetbix, being already brown in colour, bakes much faster than cornflakes.



The crunchier outer skin was a good contrast with the soft, light interior. I was quite surprised that the inside of this cookie turned out to be rather light and fluffy (in a cookie sorta way, not as compared to a cake of course!) rather than dense and crunchy as compared to say, Famous Amos cookies. It had quite a 'healthy' taste, and was a hit with my family members.


Ingredients
(makes 18-19 cookies)
60g unsalted butter, softened
50g sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp jam (blueberry/red current), softened
60g desiccated coconut
125g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 weetbix bars, lightly crushed

Equipment
Electric Mixer
Baking Tray

Method
1. Line baking tray with baking paper.

2. Cream butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Butter should turn off-white in colour.
Mix in egg thoroughly.
Add in vanilla and jam until combined.

3. Stir in coconut.
Mix soda and flour well, then sift into batter in 3 batches, folding to combine.
Stir until mixture is almost smooth.

4. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

5. Put crushed weetbix on a shallow dish and roll levelled tablespoons of batter onto the weetbix, coating evenly.
Arrange on tray, with space of 1/2 a cookie in between to allow for expansion.

5. Bake for 13-15 minutes, until lightly browned.
Allow to cook on wire rack, then store in air-tight container.