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Corn Flake Macaroons
1 C sugar 1 C grated cocoanut (dry) 1 C nuts 4 egg whites beaten stiff 4.C corn flakes (Kelloggs) Beat eggs real stiff, then add sugar (fold in). Then add cocoanut, corn flakes and nuts. Drop on well-greased cookie tray. Bake in moderate oven and remove from tray as soon as taken from oven.
A meringue-based drop cookie that comes together in one bowl; the only real risks are overbeating the whites and letting the cookies weld themselves to the pan.
- Oven temperature"Moderate oven" in this period is usually reckoned at about 350-375F; 350F is the safer choice here. These are a meringue, so if the bottoms are browning before the tops set, drop to 325F and give them longer.
- TimingThe original gives none. Expect 12 to 18 minutes at 350F — they should be dry to the touch and just tinged gold at the edges, still slightly chewy inside.
- The instruction that mattersRemove them from the tray the moment they come out of the oven. Sugar meringue sets like glue as it cools, and a cookie left two minutes too long will tear apart. Have a thin metal spatula ready.
- Grease, or better, paperA "well-greased cookie tray" was the period answer. Parchment does the job more reliably and makes the immediate lift-off easier.
- CocoanutSimply an older spelling of coconut. "Dry" most likely distinguishes desiccated coconut from freshly grated, and is best read as unsweetened desiccated rather than the moist sweetened flake sold in bags today; sweetened coconut will push these close to cloying.
- FoldingFold the sugar into the whites rather than beating it in, as directed, then fold the bulky ingredients in three additions. Corn flakes crush easily and the batter deflates fast once they go in — work quickly and bake straight away.
- NutsA cup of unspecified nuts; walnuts or pecans, chopped, suit the flavour. Toast them first if you like, and keep the pieces small so the mounds hold together.
- YieldFour egg whites and this volume of bulk give roughly 30 to 36 small mounds. They keep only a day or two before going soft; an airtight tin helps.
Corn flake macaroons belong to a whole family of interwar and mid-century cookies built on a branded breakfast cereal, and the parenthetical "(Kelloggs)" in the original is the tell — naming the box was, by many accounts, a common habit, and cereal companies did push baking uses in their advertising and pamphlets. The name borrows from the almond macaroon, an egg-white-and-sugar confection of much older European lineage, but by the time American community cookbooks got hold of it "macaroon" had come to mean almost any stiff-beaten-white drop cookie, with coconut standing in for ground almonds and cereal supplying crunch and cheap bulk. A recipe like this one also suited a thrifty kitchen: no butter, no flour, four egg whites that might otherwise have gone begging after a batch of custard or angel food cake.