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Cocoa-Nut Drops
One pound cocoa-nut, half pound powdered sugar, and the white of an egg; work all together and roll into little balls in the hand; bake on buttered tins.-C. W. Cyphers,
Three ingredients, no oven temperature, and no baking time — the whole recipe hinges on getting the moisture right before the balls go on the tin.
- What "cocoa-nut" means hereIn 1883 this often meant fresh coconut, cracked and grated at home, which is moist and heavy — though packaged desiccated coconut was already being sold by then. A pound of modern dried desiccated or sweetened flake coconut is far drier and one egg white may not bind it; you may need a second or third white, added one at a time, until the mass just holds a squeezed shape.
- Powdered sugarPeriod powdered sugar was loaf sugar crushed and sieved — pure sucrose, no anti-caking starch. Modern confectioners' sugar contains about 3 percent cornstarch, which absorbs a little moisture; superfine (caster) sugar is the closer match if the mixture is refusing to come together.
- Oven heatNo temperature or time is given, as is common in books of this period. A slow-to-moderate bake, around 325°F, until the tips are just golden and the bases set — roughly 15 to 20 minutes for walnut-sized drops — suits them; higher heat browns the exposed coconut shreds before the interiors set.
- Buttered tinsButter was the usual dressing for tins, though papers were also used for drop confections; sugar-and-egg-white drops stick and tear regardless. Parchment on the sheet solves it entirely and costs nothing in texture.
- Size and shaping"Little balls in the hand" probably means something around a rounded teaspoon each. Squeeze firmly — these are bound by little more than egg white and sugar, and a loosely rolled ball slumps and spreads.
- YieldA pound of coconut with half a pound of sugar makes a large batch — anywhere from about 40 to 80 drops depending on how big you roll them. They keep several days in a tin but go tough; they are best the day they are baked.
- SweetnessIf you use sweetened flake coconut rather than fresh, cut the sugar by about a third or the drops will be cloying and prone to scorching on the bottom.
Coconut confections spread quickly through American cookbooks in the decades after the Civil War, a rise often attributed to the Caribbean shipping trade that is said to have made whole coconuts a familiar sight in American markets, and to the arrival of commercially shredded, dried coconut sold in packages. Drops like these are essentially a macaroon built on coconut instead of almonds — the same principle of a nut or fruit bound with sugar and egg white and dried more than baked — and their popularity is generally traced to the fact that they demanded no butter, no flour, no leavening and no great skill. The Dixie Cook Book, a large late-nineteenth-century compilation assembled from contributed recipes, prints this one under the name of its donor, C. W. Cyphers, in the manner of a community cookbook: brief, unmeasured in the ways that mattered least to its author, and assuming a cook who already knew what her oven could do.