Home › Left-Over Bread › Cheese Macaroons
Cheese Macaroons
Spread some macaroons lightly with any tart jelly at hand. Press two together with a layer of snappy cheese between.
An assembly job rather than a cooked dish, but the terms need translating before it makes sense on a modern counter.
- "Macaroons" means the old kindIn a book of this vintage a macaroon is a domed almond or coconut drop cookie, crisp outside and chewy within — not the smooth-shelled French macaron with buttercream inside. Amaretti or plain coconut macaroons are the right thing; anything already filled will not work.
- "Snappy cheese"Period shorthand for a sharp, well-aged cheese — an aged cheddar, or a dry crumbly Cheshire. Cut it thin, no thicker than a coin, or it overwhelms an almond cookie.
- "Tart jelly at hand"Red currant, quince, crab apple or damson: a firm, acid jelly that holds its shape. Modern jams with fruit pieces and a soft set will slide out under pressure.
- Spread lightly, and mean itThe cheese and jelly are seasoning for the cookie, not a filling. A scant quarter teaspoon of jelly per macaroon is enough; too much and the sandwich sweats and slips apart.
- Yield and servingThe recipe implies two macaroons per sandwich. Assemble shortly before serving if you want the cookies to keep some crispness.
The word macaroon is generally traced through French macaron from the Italian maccarone, the same root as macaroni, though the development of the sense is not fully settled. Pairing sharp cheese with a tart fruit jelly is a long-standing British habit, akin to cheese-and-quince or cheese-and-damson on a board, and this recipe borrows that pairing and props it on a cookie instead of a biscuit or bread. Books of left-over cookery were popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and again under wartime rationing, and were often organised by the ingredient being rescued rather than by the dish produced.