Hello Dolly Cookies

 

If I had to pick one recipe as our biggest family tradition, I would have to say Hello Dolly Cookies would be it. The first time I remember having them I was 4. It was Christmas Eve night and my Grandparents had just driven down from their new home in Lake Tahoe. It was definitely past my bedtime but my parents let me stay up to wait for Gramma and Grampa to get there. Somehow even after a 2 1/2 hour drive in the middle of winter, my Gramma managed to keep them warm and gooey. I got to open a present and eat a Hello Dolly Cookie square before bed.

*For the rest of my life, THAT would be what Christmas would taste like.*

I arrived in North Carolina as a missionary in November, 2002. It didn't take long before the standard missionary question I seemed to get from folks was,

"What holiday traditions does your family have???"

"Uhhhh ..."  I kinda drew a blank. Traditions? I don't know, we just did the same thing as everybody else, right?

My companion had this great story about a Dutch tradition her family does where they have rice pudding for dessert and someone has an almond hidden in their pudding. Whoever finds the almond gets a prize.

She was making me look bad.

So then I started telling people about Hello Dolly Cookies and that seemed to satisfy them. Whenever we were invited to someone's house for the holidays I always managed to squeeze in the little bit of time it takes to make these.

Once, on my mission another missionary called us to ask if we had any easy cookie recipes that they could handle making. They had an investigator that was sick and they wanted to do something nice for her. They were greeted by my trainer's standard answer of  "Sisters DON'T bake."

While I agreed with her philosophy, and taught it to my future trainees, I also taught them when to bend that rule, and this was one of those times. The elders managed to pull it off, and I heard they ended up making many more batches.

They called them "Sister Bebo's Bomb-Diggety Cookies."

Hello Dolly Cookies

1 cube butter

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup flaked coconut

1 15oz can sweetened condensed milk

Melt butter in 10x12 pan. (It really doesn't matter what size - smaller makes them thicker, bigger makes them thinner, I wouldn't go bigger than 9x13 without doubling the recipe, though) 

Make sure butter covers entire bottom of pan.

Sprinkle with graham cracker crumbs evenly.

Top with layer of walnuts, then chocolate chips, then coconut.

Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over the top.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.