My First Macaroons

I am so sorry it's been a while! In all honesty, I haven't really made anything fun. I've basically been living off of peanut butter sandwiches for the last couple of weeks while I got in the hang of things this semester. That's another reason I didn't have any fun. The school semester started, and I got busy.

Anyway, there's a Mexican bakery near my house in my hometown, and my family and I LOVE their macaroons. Seriously. However many they have that day, we buy them all. We're obsessed. I just love coconut period. (If ONE person comments about how coconut oil is so good for you, I swear... Do not get me started on "healthy" coconut...)

Anyway, I started to have a HUGE craving for them and decided they couldn't be too hard to make, right? Eggs and coconut and I should be set, right?

Turns out, yes!

This was my inspiration recipe. Why? Because it was the first one that popped up for me that wasn't "macaron." There's a difference, Google! Come on! Get it together!

I then had to change the recipe a bit. I didn't have cherries, nor did I want them. So I threw those out. I don't have almond extract, but I do have some kick-ass Mexican vanilla, so I subbed that. Also, I cannot find unsweetened coconut anywhere! So I had to reduce the sugar. Oh, and I didn't have a whole bag of coconut, so I halved the recipe.

So, in summary, here's what I did::

Equipment:
-Oven
-Cookie Sheet
-Moderately sized bowl (sorry for the vagueness)

Ingredients:
-2 large egg whites
-1/4 Cup sugar
-1/8 cup all-purpose flour
-tiny bit of salt
-1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
-2 cups shaved (sweetened, in my case) coconut

Instructions:
1. heat oven to 325.
2. grease and lightly flour cookie sheet
3. in the bowl, beat the 2 egg whites until foamy.
4. beat in sugar, flour, salt, and vanilla extract until blended.
5. stir in coconut
6. drop dough in scant tablespoon fuls 2 inches apart
7. bake 13-17 minutes until set and lightly browned
8. immediately remove from cookie shets

This is how mine looked:

I cooked mine for 14 minutes because at 13 I didn't think the coconut looked "toasted" enough. 

After I was "finished," I re-examined my macaroons, as well as my pantry, and decided that some dark chocolate would be delicious. So I dipped them in dark chocolate.

Possible Changes:
1. Egg temperature: because I decided to make these completely out of the blue, my eggs were still pretty cold when I started beating them. Next time I will PLAN on making macaroons and get the eggs out well in advance.
2. Chocolate covering: while delicious, I think they don't look very pretty with the covering on top. So next time, I would like to drizzle chocolate on them, or line them bottom of them, so it's as if they have chocolate soles. I think that would look really pretty. My problem with the "chocolate soles" is that I think they might stick to the pan then. If anyone has a way to guarantee they'll come right off, please let me know!
3. Halving the recipe: next time, I want to have 20 million bags of coconut, so I don't have to halve the recipe. I have discovered my roommates like macaroons, which means they're disappearing quickly. So my suggestion is DO NOT HALVE THE RECIPE. You will regret making so little.