For a work party earlier this year, I had the twin task of figuring out a dessert that could meet both the dietary restrictions of a c0-worker with celiac disease and the needs of co-workers observing Passover. Thankfully, there is great overlap in practical terms of what those restrictions mean for baking purposes, so my search easily led to coconut macaroons.
I've never made these treats before and was excited to try a completely new dessert. I ended up using a Cook's Illustrated recipe after looking at a few different approaches on the internet. Unlike many recipes, this version did not use sweetened, condensed milk or other additives. Rather, it had just four ingredients – flaked coconut, granulated sugar, egg whites, and almond extract.
While it was pretty easy to blend all the ingredients together, the result wasn't quite what I had hoped for.
Namely, these perfect little balls that went into the oven:
Came out like this:
While they tasted delicious, the spread cookies were definitely not the outcome I was expecting. I still don't quite know what happened, but potentially it was over-processing the mixture, the lack of cornstarch, or even the humidity? Or could it be that my food processor couldn't fit all the ingredients, so I had to hand stir the contents? I also had to bake the cookies for longer than expected for them to set, but that was well after the spreading had occurred.
Next time, I'll probably try the cornstarch first and then move on to diagnosing what else could change to result in round macaroons.
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