Loved these! We all did – even those of us who don’t love coconut (including me, although I think I may have moved over into the like category.) Judy and Marco really enjoyed – and she is a true coconut aficionado. Alice Medrich calls these New Classic Coconut Macaroons because she recreated the recipe with unsweetened dried coconut flakes (not sweetened, shredded and artificially preserved.) Maybe that is why I like them so. The cookie consistency is chewy and soft inside, and crispy on the outside and so very flavorful and quite pretty to look at. (Long run-on, I’m aware.) I threw some bittersweet chocolate shavings into some and wow — even better! In others, I added dried cherries, and that too was another nice alternative. Make these soon and make a lot! They last 4-5 days in an airtight container. Enjoy –
coconut mounds (from Chewy, Gooey, Crispy Crunchy by Alice Medrich):
makes about 22 cookies
4 large egg whites
3 1/2 cups (5.25 oz.) unsweetened dried coconut flakes (also called coconut chips)
3/4 cup (5.25 oz.) sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
slightly rounded 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Combine all the ingredients in a stainless steel bowl. Set the bowl over a sauce pan filled with an inch of barely simmering water (the bowl should be on top of the sauce pan, it should not fit inside the sauce pan.)
Mix the ingredients with a rubber spatula over the heated water until the mixture becomes more opaque and less translucent. This should take about 5-7 minutes. The mixture will get hot – which you want, but you don’t want to cook the egg whites.
Set batter aside for 30 minutes to fully absorb the coconut flavor.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place 2 tablespoons of batter for each cookie onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for about 5 – 7 minutes (rotating pans). You want the coconut tips to just start to color. Reduce the oven temp to 325 and continue to cook for 10-15 minutes (again, rotating your pans) until the cookies are a beautiful cream color with golden brown edges.
If the coconut tips are browning too fast, you can reduce the oven temp to 300.
Let cool on pans, and oh, best to enjoy day one as they are gooey and soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Yum.
