Macaroooooooooons!

Following this recipe, in about thirty minutes, tops, you should have a lovely bunch of macaroons. This recipe makes about 30 quarter sized treats.

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups of shredded coconut (unsweetened coconut is best, but if the grocery store only has sweetened coconut, no worries)
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract (or if you have a vanilla bean handy, cut it in half and use its seeds). Or you might try adding a crushed cardamom pod.)
1/8 tsp. salt
2/3 cups condensed milk
2 egg whites (beaten until you have a stiff foam)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

In one bowl, combine the coconut, salt, condensed milk and vanilla extract together.

In a separate bowl, fluff up your egg whites until you have a stiff foam.

Then, fold the egg whites in to the coconut mixture. By folding, I mean, mix in a chunk of the fluffed egg whites into the coconut mixture, gradually and gently. The egg whites are what help maintain the macaroons' pillowyness. If you beat the egg whites into the coconut mixture you will end up with flat macaroons.

Then, grease a non-stick cookie sheet with butter.

With your hands, make little balls from the batter and place them 2-inches apart from one another on the cookie sheet.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes. Leave the oven light on and check intermittently. Take them out when golden brown.

Take the cookie sheet out of the oven. Remove the macaroons from the pan. They will be sticky and lose their shape when you try to remove them from the sheet, but fret not, you can reshape them with your hands. Allow them a few minutes to cool down.

** If you have time you could try dipping the bottoms of them in melted chocolate (once they have finished cooling) to achieve a more show stopping result.