So I have recently been craving coconut macaroons. I used to see these in my neighborhood grocery store, but since I have been craving them, I can't seem to find them anywhere. As a result, I went to allrecipes.com, and found some recipes. I was amazed at how simple these are to make! I like mine macaroons to be very chewy, so I was looking for a chewy recipe. For my first attempt at making macaroons, I adopted a recipe submitted by Robin J. on allrecipes.com. The original recipe can be found here.
Here is the recipe I ended up using based on the ingredients I had on hand:
Ingredients:
- 14 oz bag coconut flakes
- 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- In large mixing bowl, combine coconut, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla extract.; mix well.
- Drop by rounded tablespoons onto parchment paper. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges.
While the end result came out quite pretty and tasty, I think I will try another recipe next time. I followed the recipe for the most part, except that I didn't have almond extract, so I skipped that. When my first batch came out of the oven, the macaroons were stuck to the parchment paper and impossible to get off without leaving the bottoms of the macaroons stuck on. So for the rest of the batter, I added about 1/3 cup flour. This didn't help. The second batch stuck to the paper as well.
Also, I found the macaroons to be too sweet. I had tried to search for unsweetened coconut flakes when I went ingredient shopping, but didn't find any at Vons. Next time I'll look somewhere else because I think the use of the sweetened flakes makes the macaroons too sweet. Also, while the macaroons were very chewy at first, they didn't remain as chewy after they cooled.
So next time, I'm going to try to find a chewier recipe, grease my parchment paper more, and use unsweetened flakes! I'll post another recipe once I perfect it.
They did come out very pretty though:
