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Cocoanut Macaroons
3 egg whites 1 cup sugar 1/2 pound prepared shredded cocoanut A few grains salt Beat the whites. Beat in the sugar, adding it a little at a time; then beat very stiff. Stir in the cocoanut, and form into little balls the size of walnuts. Bake on an oiled pan in a slow oven till lightly browned.
A three-ingredient meringue macaroon that depends entirely on how stiffly the whites are beaten and how gently the oven is run.
- The hinge: beat the whites past soft peaksThe sugar goes in gradually, then the mixture is beaten "very stiff" — glossy and holding a sharp point. An underbeaten meringue slumps into flat, weeping discs the moment it warms.
- Slow ovenThe recipe gives no temperature. In period usage a slow oven is generally taken as about 300F, 325F at the outside. These are meant to dry out and set as much as bake; timing varies, but reckon on roughly 25 to 30 minutes for the tops to firm and take the faintest color, which is the recipe's "lightly browned."
- "Prepared shredded cocoanut"Around 1900 this meant coconut already shredded and sold ready-packaged, saving the cook the work of cracking and grating a nut; how moist or sweetened it was varied by brand, and much of it was drier than today's sweetened flake. If you use modern unsweetened desiccated coconut, it will drink up the meringue: the batter looks stiffer and the macaroons come out sandier.
- Half a poundAbout 8 oz, which is roughly 2 1/2 to 3 cups of sweetened flake by volume. Volume varies a great deal between brands, so weigh it.
- Oiled panSugar-heavy meringue welds itself to metal. Parchment is a better reading of the instruction than oil, and the macaroons will lift cleanly once fully cool.
- Size and yieldWalnut-sized balls give about 24. They spread very little, so an inch between them is enough.
- StorageCrisp on the day they are baked, chewy by the next. Keep them in a tin rather than a sealed plastic box, which softens them quickly.
Coconut macaroons descend from the older almond macaroon -- ground nuts bound with beaten egg white and sugar, a form generally traced to Italian and French convent baking and long popular in Britain and America. Coconut increasingly took that role in American home kitchens in the late nineteenth century, as shredded coconut began to be sold ready-packaged: it was cheap, kept well, and needed no pounding in a mortar as almonds did. Recipes like this one, calling for "prepared" coconut, reflect that shift, since the phrase assumes the reader will buy the ingredient ready-shredded rather than crack a nut. It was also an economical way to use up whites left over from dishes made with yolks.