Almond coconut macaroons

I'd tried making macaroons before and the result was a miserable failure. Let's not talk about my attempt to make French macarons. Disastrous.

When I pulled the baking sheet from the oven, the coconut-egg white mixture had softened to spread into a large gooey mess. Sure enough, this happened about five minutes before I was due to run out to go to a birthday party. Of course, I had been planning to take the macaroons. Still, I vowed to try again one day.

So when I received Martha Stewart's Cookie of the Day email and it promised me that this macaroon recipe was dead easy, I trusted her.

What Martha Stewart says, she means. At least when it comes to important matters such as baking, that is.

Ingredients:

Makes 8 large macaroons.

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 large egg white
• 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup whole almonds, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Pinch of coarse salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.


2. Line a baking sheet with a nonstick baking mat or parchment.


3. Whisk together sugar and egg white in a large bowl.


4. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Form dough into eight 2-tablespoon mounds, and drop each onto sheet, 2 inches apart.


5. Bake macaroons until golden-brown on bottoms and edges, about 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes. Transfer to wire racks, and let cool.

My substitutions:

I used non-sweetened coconut as the recipe called for, and I wished I had used sweetened. After tasting the delicious macaroons, I felt like I should have added almond extract. Sure enough, when I checked other recipes, they included almond and vanilla extracts, so I will be sure to add both next time.

Would I make this again?

Yes, probably within days. Next time, however, I will use sweetened coconut, add some almond extract, and bake it for one minute less. One or two of the macaroons turned out perfectly but the others had a slightly crispy bottom. I'll also planning to dip the bottoms of the macaroons into some melted chocolate.

Grade:

Five stars out of five. Yes I plan to make some additions to my next attempt, but these were so easy, so tasty, so mindless, that this recipe deserves a perfect score.