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Cocoanut Puffs
3 egg whites, beaten stiff 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon cornstarch cocoanut enough to make stiff 1 teaspoon vanilla To the egg whites, add vanilla, sugar and cornstarch, dissolved in a very little water. Put in a double boiler and cook over boiling water for 20 or 25 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking, then add cocoanut enough to stand up well when dropped on greased pans. It takes one-half pound or a little more for this recipe. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in a moderate oven. Makes 27.
A cooked-meringue macaroon: the whites and sugar are heated over water until thick and safe before any coconut goes in. The double-boiler stage is the whole recipe, and it cannot be rushed.
- The hinge: cook the meringue properlyTwenty to twenty-five minutes over simmering water is not a suggestion. The mixture should thicken to a stiff, glossy, spreadable paste that holds a ribbon; if it is still loose the puffs will slump and weep in the oven.
- Water, not direct heatThe bowl must sit above the boiling water, not in it, or the whites will scramble at the edges. Stir down the sides every few minutes.
- "Moderate oven"Conventionally reckoned around 350-375F. Eight to ten minutes should set the outside while leaving the centre chewy; at the hotter end watch that the exposed coconut does not colour before the middles are done.
- CocoanutPeriod coconut was generally dried and shredded, and drier than most bagged sweetened flake sold now. If using sweetened flake you may need less than the half pound the recipe calls for; add only until the mixture stands in a peak on the spoon.
- CornstarchSlake the teaspoon in a very little cold water before it goes in, as directed. Dropped in dry it will pill into lumps that never dissolve.
- PansGreased sheets were standard then; parchment is better here, since the sugar-heavy bases stick hard once cooled. Let the puffs firm on the sheet a minute before lifting.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives twenty-seven puffs, so they are dropped small. They keep for several days in a tin but soften in humid weather.