Coconut Macaroons - Two Days Late and an Ingredient Short (sort of)

I totally meant to get a blog post up last week. I cooked so many things - baked chicken in red sauce over pasta, Toll House pie, chewy chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips - and I kept forgetting to take pictures of anything.

I blame much of that on our weird weather. I mean... 17 inches of blizzard-y snow in April (just three weeks ago, now) was enough to throw off even the most stalwart of Minnesotans - and I do not fall into that category.

So now that it is aggressively intensely spring outside, I am back on track - if a couple of days late. This week with Coconut Macaroons.

Of course, I can only make them if I have all of the ingredients on hand, which is part of why this post is so late...

Now, to make sure we're all on the same page, we are talking about traditional Coconut Macaroons:

We are not talking about French Macarons:

From StockSnap.io

Nor will we be dining with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte:

From today.com

Now that we're all on the same page, let's take a closer look at the Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book recipe:

Ooh... Just look at all of the possible variations!

Since I took the extra day to go out and buy coconut, we can now do some mise en place-ing.

Wait. Let's look a little more closely at the ingredient list:

Remember how I said that one of the things I was making sure I had on hand was sweetened condensed milk? Notice the extreme lack of sweetened condensed milk in the recipe?

Well, I guess it's just good to know that I have it on hand in case of emergency. For now, we'll just put it in the back of the photo, like that one person who always shows up at family reunions, but you're not sure how you're related.

Seriously, though - 5 ingredients. How easy is this?

I don't know about you, but I had no idea how many egg whites make up a half cup. So I did some cracking and measuring and counting.

As you can probably tell by the 3 whole and one broken yolks, it took 4 whites to get me that half cup.

In case you're wondering how fluffy egg whites get within half a minute of beating, here's what I got:

The next few steps, honestly, couldn't have been easier. Add all the non-coconut bits:

Not really sure why, but that looks - to me - like an abstract "angry bird." Do we dare go down the Rorschach test road with this? (My guess is "No. No we don't dare do that.")

You have absolutely no idea how hard it was to not just stick a spoon in this mixture and eat it. It's sugar and vanilla, after all. But - yeah - raw egg whites, too. At least I could appreciate that it smelled good. 

These wouldn't be coconut macaroons without coconut, so here goes the 2.5 cups of it right into the bowl.

It looks a little like packing materials in this photo, doesn't it? Or maybe shredded parmesan cheese? 

This gets a little gooey as you stir it, but, no matter how much you want to taste it, you really shouldn't do that.

You can't tell in the photo, but as I was taking this, some of the mix kind of rolled off the spatula in the most tantalizing of ways.

According to the recipe from 1950, these are supposed to be dropped on "ungreased wrapping paper" - which I assume means "butcher paper" and not gift wrap - either way, I went with parchment paper.

And, instead of an actual teaspoon, I went for my small cookie scoop.

Again: You should not eat this at this point because of the raw eggs. However, if you did - hypothetically - get some on your fingers and lick it off, you'd find that it is sugary and chewy and just runny enough to get into your beard if you're not careful. (And - obviously - if you have a beard.)

As they were baking, they looked a bit like melting marshmallow Peeps. 

Meanwhile, you can begin attending to the huge pile of dishes you've accumulated. Or, rather, the incredibly easy to get through one bowl, 4 measuring devices, and 3 utensils you've used.

As a bonus, this is mostly all sugar and egg - hot water takes care of most of it as long as you don't let it set and dry.

When they came out of the oven, the outer edges "deflated" and flattened a bit.

This is where the recipe says to "use your fingers" to kind of smoosh the not-quite-325-degree flattened edges back toward the middle. Because, back in the 1950s, home bakers apparently had Asbestos-lined fingertips.

If you're like me and do not have Asbestos-lined fingertips, I recommend using a small spatula, instead, which works fairly well, if not with quite the same precision.

Mine ended up basically looking like this: 

Some I waited too long on, and so they stayed a bit flatter.

The recipe goes into detail about how to lift the paper (with the macaroons on it) out of the pan, place a wet towel on the pan, put the paper back, and let the steam help with the release of the macaroons from the paper. (It's the bottom paragraph on the left - it goes with the photo.)

Luckily, to make up for my non-Asbestos fingertips, I do have parchment paper which is considered to be non-stick. So I just waited until these had set up, and then removed them with my fingers. (I didn't even need a spatula, though I guess I could have gone that route if I'd wanted to.)

I moved them around on the sheet (from where they'd baked to "empty" spaces), but didn't move them off the paper. I figured they could dry just as well on the paper, without worry of getting stuck to the cooling rack. 

So, how did they turn out?

Yeah. They are really good. Even without any chocolate on them. Just a little crunch, a great amount of chew, and all that coconut-y goodness. Perfect for a spring or summer weekend. Or - heck - with only 5 ingredients and about an hour's worth of time, these could be an easy weeknight treat, as well. (Just make sure you have coconut on hand before your craving gets the best of you.)

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Not a fan of coconut? What do you like to have as a summer treat? Is there something from your childhood that you still go back for? Or is it an adult-onset craving? Let me know what you've got a hankering for, and I'll see if I can find a recipe to try out!