Home › Cookies-Doughnuts › Coco-Roons
Coco-Roons
1 C sugar. 1 C Baker's canned cocoanut, Mrs. Chas. Greenwood. 2 egg whites ½ t salt 2 C cornflakes 1 C Baker's canned cocoanut, Southern style 12 t flavoring Beat egg whites with salt until stiff. Whisk in the cup of sugar, 2 T at a time. Add slowly the cornflakes, cocoanut and flavoring. Drop on waxed paper on greased pan and bake 20 minutes in a slow oven. Mrs. Mary McCormick. 1 t salt
A cornflake macaroon typed from a church-supper card, with the usual gaps: the sugar appears in the method but not the ingredient list, and at least one quantity has been garbled in transcription.
- The missing sugarThe ingredient list omits it, but the method calls for "the cup of sugar" whisked in 2 tablespoons at a time. Read it as 1 cup granulated sugar, though that is a heavy ratio for two whites and the meringue will be dense rather than light.
- "12 t flavoring"Almost certainly a mangled ½ teaspoon. Twelve teaspoons of extract in a two-white meringue is not plausible. Use ½ teaspoon vanilla or almond extract.
- Slow oven300F. These are meringue-bound, so the low heat is doing the work of drying rather than browning; pull them when the surfaces are set and dry and the edges just tinged.
- Baker's canned cocoanut, Southern styleA moist, sweetened shredded coconut sold in cans before the modern plastic bag. Substitute sweetened flaked coconut, about 3 ounces to the cup, and do not use dry unsweetened desiccated coconut, which will drink the meringue and leave the batter stiff.
- Waxed paperIt was standard for drop meringues and it works, but parchment releases more cleanly and will not soften and stick under the sugar. Grease the pan under it either way, as instructed, or skip the grease if using parchment.
- Folding, not stirring"Add slowly" means fold. Cornflakes crush easily and the meringue deflates fast; three or four broad strokes with a spatula is enough to coat the flakes.
- SaltThe half teaspoon is a lot for two whites by modern taste. A pinch, added at the start as directed, stabilises the foam without reading as salty.
- Yield and storageYield depends entirely on the size of the drops; a batch this size will give several dozen small ones. They go soft within a day in humid air; keep them airtight, or re-dry briefly in a low oven.
- Stray line at the end"Mrs. Mary McCormick. 1 t salt" is the head of the next recipe on the page, pulled in during transcription. It is not part of this one.
Church and parish cookbooks like this one were compiled from members' handwritten cards, which is why the same page can carry two contributors' names and an ingredient list that quietly disagrees with its own method. Coconut macaroons reached American home kitchens in quantity once sweetened shredded coconut was sold ready to use in cans and cartons, and cornflakes turn up often enough as a stretcher and texture in drop cookies of this kind. The jokey spelling "Coco-Roons" is the sort of thing that turns up constantly in these collections, where a familiar recipe gets a family nickname and the nickname is what goes into print. The double "o" in cocoanut is an older American spelling.