This Saturday I borrowed two books from the library on baking cookies. The following macaroons recipe is based on Key Lime Coconut Macaroons, from Jill Snider's Cookies book.
That recipe caught my eye because it was eggless originally when the macaroon recipes I've seen so far used egg whites and I had all the ingredients at home.
Since I don't like lime/lemon flavoring in cookies/cakes, I omitted it. The original recipe called for key lime juice, so I substituted it with milk. Then only I realized that how similar it was to the South Indian "thengai-coconut burfi". So to get that taste I decided to add some cashews and cardamom powder.
I also ended up using a lesser amount of coconut and all-purpose flour, so the final batter was watery. Then I remembered how my grandmother used to add rava (semolina) while making the burfis, so I also added a couple of tablespoons of it, to make the dough firm. In spite of all these changes, the end product tasted perfect.
I think the mistake I did was adding milk to replace the lime juice, which resulted in a watery batter or not following the actual measurements. But it was a very lovely experience trying out various combinations. So what I would do the next time is, combine condensed milk and coconut to form a firm dough, drop it on a cookie sheet and bake it. I'm confident that this will also bake correctly.
Recipe
Eggless Coconut Macaroons Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Sweetened Condensed Milk
- ¼ Cup Milk
- ¼ Cup All Purpose Flour
- 2.5 Cups Sweetened Shredded Coconut
Optional Ingredients:
- 3 Tablespoons Semolina
- ¼ Cup Cashew Nuts, Broken Into Pieces
- 1 Teaspoon Cardamom Powder
Instructions
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 350F (180C) for 15 minutes.
- In a large bowl, combine sweetened milk and milk, whisking until blended.
- With a wooden spoon, stir in flour, mixing until thoroughly blended.
- Stir in coconut, cashews and cardamom powder.
- After combining all the ingredients, the batter was a little bit watery. So I test baked just 1 tablespoon and the cookie spread so much.
- So I added 3 tablespoons of semolina (sooji/rava) to the batter and combined it well and now the batter was nice and firm. Again I test baked another tablespoon of the dough and the macaroon came out perfect.
- Then I went ahead and dropped tablespoonfuls of dough about 1 inch apart and baked it in the oven until it was golden around the edges (which approximately took 15 minutes). I got 24 (plus 2 test bake) macaroons for the above measurement.
- Cool for 10 minutes on the sheet. This point is very important. Don't try to remove the macaroons from the sheet once it is out the oven because it will be very flimsy. Again don't put it back in the oven to harden it. Just leave the macaroons on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes and it will harden by itself.
- Then transfer to a rack and cool completely.
Mike says
This recipe is so inaccurate it’s beyond reproach. Double batch needs 6-8 cups of flour to tighten up this slurry of sugar and coconut!!!!
Rita says
Thank you for this easy recipe! I made a half batch and they turned out really well. I did not have semolina so I used one tablespoon of almond flour instead. I also used unsweetened coconut flakes. We have a lot of older friends who are not into heavy excessively sweet desserts so these are perfect.
Madhuram says
Thank you for the feedback, Rita. The use of almond flour and unsweetened coconut sounds great!