Hamburger Cookies

They look like little bite-sized burgers, but they taste like chocolate-y, coconut-y deliciousness!
I first saw these at a bake sale when I was in elementary school and still remember my glee at seeing such cute little cookies. And they are so easy to make…

Ingredients:

vanilla wafers, chocolate frosting,

sweetened shredded coconut, green & yellow food coloring

Steps:

1) Pour out a pile of wafers and dust the crumbs off of them; otherwise the frosting doesn’t stick so well and is harder to spread.

2) Spread frosting on flat side of wafers, lots of frosting on half of them and just a dab on the rest.

3) Color coconut with food coloring until it looks like lettuce; using green is the obvious choice, but adding a touch of yellow makes it less day-glo, more realistic.

4) Sprinkle some coconut on the lots-of-frosting wafers. Make sure to get it around the edges; if it’s only in the middle, you won’t see it!

5) Put a dab-of-frosting wafer on top and press down slightly. 

6) Let sit for a while so frosting can crust over a little and won’t squish out the sides when someone bites into the burgers. Finished!

Additional Comments:

* Instead of chocolate frosting, you can substitute Nutella. Yum!

* Especially if you’re making this with small children, I suggest having a damp cloth nearby so people can wipe off the inevitable frosting that will end up on their fingers instead of licking it off. And then having to go wash their hands. Again.

 

* These look even cuter when they have sesame seeds stuck on their top wafer. I'd always heard of that being done by brushing on some egg whites first as “glue.” So I don’t usually do that because I figure some people don’t want raw egg on their desserts… Possible other options would be honey (maybe water down a bit) or corn syrup. Any other ideas?

* Added from the comments below: After being stored overnight in a ziploc bag, the moisture from the frosting has softened the wafers just a touch, so now they're wonderfully bite-able. (When they're freshly made, biting into the crunchy wafers causes the burger-frosting to squish out the sides, especially if you're using Nutella.)