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Thursday, April 4, 2013

Chocolate Carmel Coconut Macaroons

Hello my beauties!
Has it hit springtime yet where you are? I'm wearing shorts today and it feels so good!
If you happened to see my Easter post, or follow me on instagram you will have seen that I have been loving this new recipe, found over at The Craving Chronicles
Let's begin the play-by-play.
 You're going to whisk up 4 egg whites until they are nice and frothy.
And then add half of a 12-14 oz bag of sweetened coconut, and 7 tbs of flour.
 The consistency will be thick and sticky and will clump up when you stir it.

Then you're going to move to the stovetop.
 Silly me, I forgot to take pictures of this part, but you are going to melt 6 tbs of butter, and 2/3 cup of sugar in a large saucepan, stirring continuously. The sugar will dissolve, then the mixture will begin to turn a nice carmel color.  
 Once the mixture turns brown turn off the heat, and carefully add the other half bag of sweetened coconut, and 1/4 tsp of salt.  I say carefully because it might spatter from being so hot, so watch out.
If your mixture seems way too dry don't fret! I was tempted to add more butter because I thought that when I combined the mixtures, the macaroons wouldn't have enough moisture to hold together. Don't worry about it though, it'll all work out in the end.
 From here you are going to add the hot mixture to the egg mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, stirring well in between each addition. This is to prevent the egg from cooking, trust me nobody wants scrambled egg whites in their macaroons.
Remember when we were worried about the mixture being too dry? 
That seems silly now, look at how nice that is!
Now put some plastic wrap over the bowl and let it chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (up to a few days if you want to make in advance).
 And when you get it out you are ready to scoop onto trays covered with parchment paper.
Look how pretty. 
These little guys are ready to go into the oven at 350 for 12-14 minutes. 
 My oven is a little touchy, so for me it took more like 20 minutes. Just bake until they are browned to your liking.
 Mmmm I can almost smell then through the computer screen.
You may want to stop here, when I made these for my family, my grandma stole a few before I put the chocolate on them, she prefers them in the nude.
But if you're a chocolate addict like me you're going to let your nude macaroons cool completely before carrying on. 
 When you're ready, melt 6-8 oz of chopped dark chocolate with 1/2 tsp of coconut oil (optional). If you have it on hand, I feel like it makes the chocolate easier to work with.
Get your cookie trays with parchment (or wax) paper out, here comes the fun part.
 CHOCOLATE
 Mmmm I'm in love.
From here you can go as crazy or be as conservative as you'd like. 
Then leave them alone until they are hardened, or if you'd like to speed up the process stick them in the fridge.
 Then hide them in your pajama drawer... I mean share them with your loves ones.
For the original recipe check out The Craving Chronicles, this recipe won the key to my sweet tooth heart.




Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Easter Recap

Hi all! I hope you had an awesome Easter weekend!  I know I did!
If you visited last week, you saw that I had high hopes for Sunday, and I am so happy to say that from the mimosa station to the dessert bar, my expectations were met!
We had fresh squeezed OJ and grapefruit, and not a bad selection of champaign if I do say so myself!
 The dessert bar was a huge hit - 
From left to right: coconut macaroons, carrot cake with cinnamon frosting, german chocolate cupcakes, and in front pastel colored meringues. 
All homemade. I was seriously worked on this for three prior to Easter, but it was so worth it.
My mom took this poor quality photo of me and my hunny. In all the craziness of Easter this is the only photo that we got, and he was being a goof ball. 
Of the 20+ family members over at the house, this is the only picture I have of human beings!
Oh well, at least we have memories...of watching Kevin Ware snap his tib-fib. 
Don't worry, I won't post a picture.
I am so proud of this cake, it was my second layered cake ever making and it didn't fall over!
I consider that a success.
 Mmm it was such a hit,  we only had a slice left. I got the recipe {here}, I recommend it to everyone, for all baking levels, it was so easy and turned out sooo good!!

How was your Easter celebration?