These Cherry Coconut Bars are the second cookie I made for the teachers at J's school the other night using the Holiday Cookie Mix. They are just as easy as the Toffee Bars, with the only difference being these need the top layer baked for another 25 minutes. I still made the mix and both batches of cookies in under an hour. At this time of year being able to bake a lot in a short amount of time is a plus in my book.

This recipe is from Betty Crocker's New Christmas Cookbook, a handy little book stuffed with hundreds of recipes for cookies, desserts and even main courses and homemade gifts. I only made two changes to the original recipe.

First, I used a Pampered Chef bar pan since I only have one 13 x 9 x 2 pan and I was using it for the other bars. It just made the cookies thinner, but more of them. No biggie consider I was going for lots of cookies in this case.

Second, I omitted the nuts in these since I didn't want to send two cookies both with nuts. Just because I love pecans, not everyone does.

I only had red cherries on hand, but if you want to make them extra Christmas-y you could use green and red maraschino cherries.

The Holiday Cookie Mix can be made up to 10 weeks ahead and refrigerated until you are ready to bake. The recipe below makes 15-16 cups of mix and each recipe uses about 4 cups of mix to make a 13 x 9 pan of cookies. If you add ½ cup of butter to 4 cups mix and press it into a pan you can top it with just about anything.

That's about it. On with the recipes.

Until next time, happy eating.
~Audrey