macaroons!
People sometimes get confused when I talk about macaroons. They come in all different shapes and sizes, some chocolate coated others pure coconut. It’s even easy to confuse macaroons, the sweet soft coconut confection, with macarons, the French confection made with eggwhite, icing sugar, and ground almonds. Macarons come in a rainbow of colours and flavours, vs macaroons are mostly coconut with a hint of almond extract. Wikipedia tells me that the Australians like to hide a dab of jam in the centre of their macaroons prior to cooking. What a delicious surprise!
If case you were wondering, I have made macarons before, but not in a wee while. I should try them again… the only question is what flavour and what colour should they be. :)
Christmas '09. I think I went a little overboard with foodcolouring. :D
But back to macaroons. I found the recipe off Allrecipes.com. It had great reviews and also used condensed milk to sweeten it rather than the more traditional egg whites and sugar mixtures. And if I know two things, they are that condensed milk is delicious and that it makes recipes oh so simple.
These macaroons came together in a flash. It took me all of 5 minutes to measure out the coconut and flour and then mix in the condensed milk and extracts. The recipe said to use 5 1/2 cups of coconut… not specifying if sweetened coconut or unsweetened coconut were preferable. I happened to have unsweetened coconut, so that is what I used. However, I think people have used sweetened coconut with great success so I think it really depends on your taste buds. Also, I used 500g of coconut, which measured only 5cups. However, a few comments on the website said that 5 1/2 cups was the equivalent of about 400g. So really, me no know. In any event, they’re macaroons and a bit extra or a bit less of coconut is not going to ruin them.
O and I also drizzled chocolate on a few of them… but you may want to eat them dipped in chocolate or plain. Either way would be delicious! So without further ado, coconut macaroons!
Coconut Macaroons
adapted from Allrecipes.com
Makes ~40 macaroons (depending on how big you role them and how much batter you eat…)
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 5 1/2 cups flaked coconut
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp almond extract
Directions:
- Mix coconut, flour and salt in a large bowl.
- In a small bowl, combine the vanilla, almond extract and condensed milk and mix well.
- Pour over coconut mixture and stir until well blended.
- Cover bowl with cling film/saran wrap and chill for 1-2h. (The original recipe didn’t suggest this, but I think it’s a good idea. Your macaroons will keep their shape better if you do.)
- Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
- Role heaped tablespoons of coconut mixture into small balls, making sure you compress the coconut firmly. Place evenly spaced on the baking sheet (I fit about 12 per sheet… my macaroons didn’t spread out much).
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the tops and edges are just turning golden brown. Remove from oven and cool completely.
- If desired, you can drizzle melted chocolate over them, dip them in chocolate, or just eat them plain.
Enjoy!