By Request Betty Shimabukuro

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Mound cookies
dandy as candy

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The Mounds candy bar was born in 1920 to the year-old Peter Paul Manufacturing Co. Sweetened coconut covered in chocolate, it came wrapped in foil and sold for 5 cents.

Chocolate and coconut -- a pairing found in all manner of sweet stuff. The Mounds concept shows up in recipes from cheesecakes to chocolate cakes to bar cookies and more. Some use the actual candy bar in the baking, others just trade on the Mounds name.

Celia Christenson e-mailed for a long-lost recipe for a coconut-filled chocolate cookie: "On our farm in Wisconsin I used to make cookies made with Nestle's Quik." She described a process of laying out circles of dough, topping them with a coconut filling, then folding over the dough. "I may be wrong, but they may have been called a Mound Cookie. They were delicious. The farm hands gobbled them up like crazy."

A close-match recipe turned up on the online recipe site, www.allrecipes.com, although made with unsweetened cocoa powder, not Quik. It follows here with many adaptations after testing. It's called a Chocolate Coconut Mound Cookie, which perhaps refers to the shape, not the candy bar, but the comparison is inevitable.

Chocolate Coconut Mound Cookie

3 cups flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
Powdered sugar, for dusting
>> Filling:
1 cup flaked coconut
2 cups milk
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; set aside.

Cream together butter, sugar, vanilla, egg and milk. Stir in dry ingredients. Chill dough.

To prepare filling: Combine coconut and milk in a pot over medium heat. Combine cornstarch and sugar; stir into milk. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring constantly until thickened. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookie sheets.

On a floured surface, roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into 2-1/2 inch circles. Place half of the circles 1-1/2 inches apart on the cookie sheets. Spoon 1 teaspoon filling into center of each circle. Top with another circle of dough and press edges to seal.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Cool cookies on baking sheet 5 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar. Store in a single layer. Makes 36 cookies.

Nutritional information unavailable.

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Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.