How To Make Coconut Macaroons – An Easy Recipe
It is always amazing how the simplest of cookies are the best. Take amoretti for instance. Stir together almond meal and egg white with some sugar and bake it up and you have a wonderfully delicious cookie without a bunch of fuss. Coconut macaroons are in the same family. There are lots of how to make coconut macaroons recipes out there spread across the interweb but many make it more complicated than it has to be. Many use sweetened coconut, too, but you don’t have to do that either.
How To Make Coconut Macaroons – The Ingredients
Coconut macaroons are made first by binding shredded or grated coconut together with egg white. It is quite similar to making amaretti cookies. The egg white acts as a fine binder and helps give the macaroons a nice chewy texture. No flour or starches needed. Another good place to play with texture is the coconut. By using grated and shaved coconut you get small and bigger bits of coconut. This just brings a little variety to the cookie while still delivering on the coconut impact.
How To Make Coconut Macaroons – Sweetened Coconut? No.
You don’t have to use sweetened coconut either. Your health food store will have unsweetened coconut. This is better only in that you can now control how sweet the cookies are. I use plain old sugar to sweeten my macaroons because it is just easy, although powdered sugar or brown sugar could also be used. There are recipes out there with sweetened condensed milk, but I prefer to use that in no bake coconut bars. They are slightly heavier and richer.
How To Make Coconut Macaroons – Flavors?
For a classic coconut macaroon, a little vanilla is welcome. Using almond or other extracts might take away from the coconut and coconut macaroons are, after all, about the coconut.
How To Make Coconut Macaroons – The Baking
A scoop is the right thing to use to form cocnut macaroons, although using hands is totally fair game. No, they won’t be as pretty, but pretty is a secondary issue. They will taste fine. When baking, it is nice to put the macaroons under the broiler to get that toasted coconut flavor on the outside. By making them nice and golden, you can ensure their prettiness even if you used your hands.
The ‘How to Make Macaroons 2 Ways’ video is below and the full recipe follows.
- 2 cups of grated, unweetened, coconut
- 1 cups of shaved, unweetened, coconut
- 2/3 cup of granulated sugar
- 3 large egg whites
- 2 tsp of vanilla
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- Preheat the oven to 350F.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients.
- In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well - until everything is well moistened.
- Using a tablespoon or wet hands, shape the macaroons, pressing the mixture together firmly.
- Place the macaroons on a parchment lined baking tray and bake for 12- 15 minutes until they begin to get golden. To get them very golden, you may have to put them under the broiler for a few minutes. Keep an eye on them because they will burn!
- Let cool and serve. Store in an air tight container.
- Check out your health food store for unsweetened coconut.
I hope you enjoy!
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