Decadent Bourgeois Coconut Macaroons

These ones were impromptu. I’d already had a plan for the day and it didn’t involve dipping things in chocolate ganache- though I am never averse to dipping anything in ganache if the opportunity presents itself.

I was on a morning quest for elusive grocery items out in Pudong, at the Longyang Lu Metro HyperMarket: buckwheat flour, coffee, spices. It was a beautiful day, cool but with brilliant blue skies.  Even the looming overhead expressways looked chipper. I very nearly skipped merrily across the eight lane freeway separating the market from the metro station.

I failed on the buckwheat front but scored on the spices and coffee. After this past weekend’s traumatic coffee shortage (tea for breakfast, two days in a row!), I went a little overboard and bought ten bags of dark Italian coffee. I also bought spices. Just a few. Note that these 500g bags are actually cheaper than the tiny little glass bottles of spice you get in the shops.  Each of these bags was under 20rmb (barely $3). They also had kilo bags of cinnamon bark, star anise and whole Sichuan peppercorns. You could build a log cabin out of the huge chunks of cinnamon they have. It’s really quite impressive.

Anyway, as you can see, none of this is foreshadowing a need to make coconut macaroons. In fact, I was planning to make experimental Xinjiang lady-noodle pierogies (which I did, concurrently).  Inspiration struck, however, when I got home around noon to find an exhausted Doug, who was trying to deal with the start of a busy work week and the tail end of a horrific cold. I decided he needed something to look forward to tonight. If I was exhausted and ill, I’d totally look forward to these.

They are really quick and really easy- and if you happen to make then at the same time as, say, the pierogies, you can use the egg yolk left over from this recipe in the potato-mash filling for the other. See? They balance each other! It’s destiny!

I used Chinese dark brown sugar instead of regular granulated sugar and it was wonderful. I also made an impromptu ganache out of half a melted chocolate-espresso bar and a few table spoons of butter. Oh, and I used my home made vanilla extract instead of almond extract.

Everything else was according to the recipe. The coconut- nearly the last of my stash- came from Fiona‘s kilo bag that she bought by accident, thinking she’d just bought a hundred grams or so (the price was so reasonable!). Whoever that vendor was, I want to thank them for bestowing upon her more coconut than she could ever conceivably use, as it has meant more coconut for me.

Here’s to excess coconut! And here’s to dipping said excess coconut in chocolate!

Coconut Macaroon Recipe

• 1/2 + 1/3 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
• 1/6 cup sugar (2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons)
• 1 1/5 tablespoons flour
• 1 egg white
• tiny splash of almond extract

Preheat oven to 325 [160-170C]. Combine coconut, sugar, and flour. Stir in the egg white and almond extract. Use a cookie scoop to portion the cookies on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until edges are golden brown.