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Dromedary Cocoanut Macaroons
1¼ cups Dromedary Cocoanut 1/3 cup condensed milk 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1 egg-white Mix cocoanut, condensed milk and vanilla thoroughly. Beat egg-white until stiff, combine mixtures, shape into cakes. Bake in moderate oven 15 minutes.
A four-ingredient macaroon that depends entirely on the milk being the right kind and the mounds being small. Two clarifications make it work.
- Condensed milk means sweetenedIn this period "condensed milk" on a label usually meant the thick sweetened kind sold in tins, while unsweetened tinned milk was generally sold as "evaporated." Use sweetened condensed milk, or the macaroons will be bland and will not set.
- Dromedary CocoanutA branded packaged shredded coconut. Modern sweetened shredded coconut is the nearest easily available match; if using unsweetened, expect a drier, less caramelised result.
- Moderate oven350F. At that heat 15 minutes browns the tips of the coconut while the centres stay chewy; check at 12 and give them up to 18 if the mounds are large.
- Shape into cakesDrop rounded tablespoons and press them into compact mounds about an inch and a half across. Loose, straggling piles scorch at the edges before the middle sets.
- Line the sheetSweetened condensed milk welds itself to bare metal. Parchment is the easy answer; a well-greased sheet works if you lift the macaroons while still warm but not hot.
- Folding the whiteBeat the white to stiff peaks and fold it into the heavy coconut mixture in two additions. The white is here for lightness, not leavening, so do not beat the batter afterwards.
- YieldAbout 15 to 18 small macaroons. They keep three or four days in a tin and are best the day they are baked.
Coconut macaroons of this type belong to the era when three of the four ingredients came out of a package: shredded coconut in a carton, sweetened condensed milk in a tin, and bottled vanilla extract. Dromedary was a grocery brand associated with packaged coconut and dates. The macaroon itself is much older and is generally traced to almond-and-egg-white confections of southern Europe; the coconut version took hold in American and British kitchens once cheap shredded coconut became a shelf staple in the later nineteenth century. What is distinctly modern for its moment is the condensed milk, which does the work that a cooked sugar syrup or a larger quantity of beaten egg white would once have done, and reduces the whole business to stirring.