Slice-and-bake refrigerator cookies with chopped cherries and pecans, rolled in flaked coconut. Festive and easy!
Ingredients
1 cup butter or shortening *, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup red candied cherries, finely chopped (you can also mix red and green cherries, and increase the amount up to 1 cup)
1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped
1 cup flaked coconut
Directions
- In a large mixer bowl beat butter till softened. Add sugar and beat till fluffy. Add milk and vanilla and beat well. Add flour and beat until well mixed. Stir in cherries and pecans. Shape into three 7″ rolls. Roll in coconut to coat. Wrap and chill for several hours. Preheat oven to 375F. Cut into 1/4″ thick slices. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake about 12 minutes or until done. Remove and cool.
Notes
- From “Homemade Cookies Cook Book” (1975) by Better Homes and Gardens.
- * We previously had three nearly identical cookie recipes on this site with the same name. One used butter, one used shortening, and one used both red and green cherries dredged in flour. One of them recommended 1 cup of cherries instead of 3/4 cup. You decide! I’ve condensed them into one recipe, here. You can find out more about the difference between butter and shortening here, but in a nutshell,
butter spreads more, gets crispier and tastes better. Shortening bakes up higher and softer but doesn’t have the flavor of butter. - Reviews below are for the original 1975 BHG Santa’s Whiskers recipe with butter and 3/4 cups cherries. For the record, on the previous version of this website, the shortening version also had 4.9 stars (out of 5) with 13 reviews.