Coconut macaroon madness

No macaroony blog would be complete without coconut macaroons! 

When I think of macaroons, I always think of French macaroons, which I guess we should all call 'macarons' except it sounds a bit poncey. But there are other types as well and coconut ones are often found in England, Scotland, the USA and Germany. 

The interwebs tells me that Australians put jam in the middle of their coconut macaroons but I think they're just trying one on - I've never seen that. 

By the way, the interwebs also tells me that the word 'macaroon' comes from the Italian maccarone, or maccherone, a verb meaning to crush or beat - because you need to crush the almonds so finely. Before food processors were invented this would have been a bummer of a job, no wonder they named the end result after it. 

Anyway, coconut macaroons start off with a basic meringue of whipped egg whites and sugar.















You add a bit of almond meal, a lot of coconut and get a sticky, moist mixture that you shape roughly into balls. It's hard to do neatly because the coconut bits stick out everywhere.

I used Nigella Lawson's recipe from How to be a Domestic Goddess, thanks Nigella.

She gives quantities for 8 largeish macaroons... I needed about 30 small ones, so I doubled the mixture... and ended up with 66!!

So Nigella's macaroons must be the size of a small Shetland pony.

2 large egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
100g caster sugar
30g ground almonds
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g shredded coconut

Set oven to 170C. Beat egg whites until frothy, then add the cream of tartar and beat to soft peak. Add the sugar gradually until the mixture is at hard peak and glossy. Fold in all other ingredients and spoon onto baking trays lined with baking paper. Bake for 20 minutes.

Coconut joy!