Gingerbread Coconut Macaroons

I’ll be honest; macaroons aren’t my first choice when glaring through the spotlit spread of sugary cakes, pies and pastries of a bakery case. More often I go for chocolate, lemon anything or something obscurely flavored with lavender or herbs. Macaroons present themselves as blank canvases with its hint of vanilla and toasted coconut body. Twas all the more reason for the creation of this cookie! Fed up with the traditional macaroon—though they are dandy drizzled with chocolate—I decided to marry the gingerbread cookie with this coconut-based confection. This matrimony produces supple bites of spicy and sweet gingerbread-toasted-coconut-goodness finished off by a thin, but oh-so-necessary, layer of bittersweet chocolate.

Gingerbread Coconut Macaroons

Yield: about 2 dozen

Total Time: 50 minutes

Active Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

1/3 cup molasses

2 egg whites

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

3 1/2 cup flaked coconut

1/4 tsp salt

3 tbsp flour

1 4-oz bar bittersweet chocolate, melted

Directions

Preheat oven to 325°. In a large bowl, combine condensed milk, molasses, egg whites and vanilla extract. In another bowl combine the remaining dry ingredients except for the chocolate. Add dry ingredients mixture to the condensed milk mixture and combine. Scoop roughly tablespoon-sized mounds of macaroon batter onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

Bake for 18–20 minutes, or until toasted and firm. Transfer baked macaroons to racks to cool completely. Once cooled, dip the bottoms of each macaroon into the melted chocolate, and place each back onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Drizzle remaining chocolate over top macaroons and refrigerate for about 10 minutes before serving. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Here’s a Lemon Coconut Thumbprint Cookies recipe.