My favorite cookie is the basic chocolate chip, but a SUPER-close second is are Hello Dollys. I’m not alone in this. They’re my husband’s favorite too. My mom makes them every Christmas as part of her holiday cookie line up. She started her holiday cookie tradition when I was a young girl, adding this particular one when she obtained the recipe from a fellow coworker at Evergreen School District where she worked at the time. My mom still makes oodles of cookies to give away: sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, Mexican Tea Cookies, anise biscotti, chocolate chip, and walnut cookies (“polvarones”), but the best are Hello Dollys.
Layers of Goodness
- Graham crackers
- Chocolate chips
- Flaked coconut
- Walnuts
- Drizzled with condensed milk
It’s more of a bar than a cookie. Hello Dollys are made with several layers of good stuff, starting with graham crackers.
There are only a few more ingredients that go on the graham cracker layer: chocolate chips, coconut flakes, walnuts. All that goodness gets topped off with a can of sweetened condensed milk drizzled over everything.
A Cookie By Any Other Name…
Hello Dollys are called by different names, amongst them “Magic Bars” and “Seven Layer Cookie.” While they are indeed magical, and they are layered (but not seven layers…not sure where the seven came from), I happen to think my brother-in-law’s tongue-in-cheek moniker is the best…”Hello Moeishas.” He commented that the “Dolly” is arbitrary and could be any name to make it one’s own.
Hmmm. By that token, in my family they could as easily be called “Hello Maria Elenas,” “Hello Mirayams,” or even “Hello Margarets.”
Since the beauty of this cookie lies with its simplicity, I’ll stick with Hello Dollys.
They are the perfect cookie to make with kids. Why? The hardest step is opening up the can of condensed milk. They are foolproof, which is why we turn to this cookie when the kids need to contribute a recipe for classroom projects.
I turn to them when we just want a delicious, easy-to-make treat.
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Hello Dollys
Equipment
- 3-quart glass casserole dish (13"x9")
- rolling pin
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups graham crackers, crushed about 2 sealed packs
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 16 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 1/4 cup shredded sweetened coconut
- 1 cup walnuts, chopped
- 14 ounce canned condensed milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Place graham crackers in resealable freezer bag, and using a rolling pin, crush all the crackers into crumbs.
- In the casserole dish, pat down the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter until it is like a crust.
- Layer the chocolate chips, coconut, and walnuts.
- Drizzle condensed milk over all.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.
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