Coconut Almond Macaroons

Niall has been hinting for a while and finally flat out asked me to make macaroons.  At first I thought he meant something like these heart shaped ones, but he asked specifically for coconut almond with milk chocolate.  I used the recipe from Adventures in Shaw.  This was my first attempt at macaroons and they weren't extremely pretty, but smelled really good baking and turned out okay.  The biggest problem had to do with my inability to melt and drizzle chocolate.  Makes 27 macaroons.

Ingredients
3 cups shredded coconut (desicated coconut)
1 cup slivered almonds
2/3 cup condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg whites
pinch of salt
12 ounces milk chocolate
3 Tablespoons cream (I used single cream)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  On a large baking tray, mix the coconut and almonds together.

Toast the coconut and almonds in the oven, mixing on occasion and checking often to make sure they don't burn.  I loved how the house smelled as the coconut browned!  Remove from the oven and allow to cool.  Place in a large bowl.

While the coconuts and almonds are cooling, mix the egg whites with a pinch of salt and beat until soft peaks form.  I used the stand mixer and it took about six minutes.  Combine the condensed milk with the vanilla.

When the coconut has cooled, add the milk mixture to the bowl and mix well.

Then fold in the egg whites.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and grease.  Once again, the parchment paper!  I don't know know how it's supposed to work, but the macaroons stuck a little and I wonder if just using a greased cookie sheet with no paper would have been better.

I used a cookie scoop to put the macaroon mixture onto the cookie sheet, each macaroon was the size of a heaping tablespoon.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, until the coconut is nicely browned.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

I pretty much failed at the chocolate dipping part.  I don't even know how to do it better.  I melted the chocolate with the cream in a double boiler.  (Uh, a metal bowl over a sauce pan full of water.  I used Cadbury milk chocolate, which was a temptation for  Niall and we ended up with less chocolate than we were supposed to.)

When the chocolate is melted, I was supposed to dip each macaroon in the chocolate, place on parchment paper and then drizzle chocolate over the top with a spoon.  I tried that and got the bottoms dipped but the drizzle didn't quite happen.  It sort of glooped.  Then I refrigerated the macaroons (on the trays) but the chocolate never really set.  But, Niall got his macaroons and I guess that's that.

Lime Cupcakes

I really do love Cookie Madness. (I think I've mentioned this before.) I used Anna's recipe for Key Lime Layer Cake, but used normal limes, cut the recipe in half and made cupcakes instead of a layer cake. The recipe makes 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients

Cake
1 1/4 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 medium eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup fresh or bottled key lime juice
1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon fresh lime zest

Lime Cream Cheese Frosting
4 oz cream cheese softened
4 tablespoons butter (60 grams) — salted
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tablespoon lime juice

Cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 375 F (about 190 C.) In a mixer, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and salt. Add in the oil, eggs, and lime juice. (I should have done it in this order but did it a little backwards. Let's just say that adding the lime juice with the baking soda make the batter expand.)

Grate the lime.

Add the lime zest and sour cream to the batter and mix well.

Line the muffin tins and add the batter until each tin is about 3/4 full.

Bake for 25 minutes. Cupcakes should be golden on the top and a fork pressed through the top should come out clean. Cool.

Frosting:

In a mixer cream together cream cheese and butter. Add sugar and vanilla, then beat in the lime juice.

Scrape the sides.

Toasted Coconut:

Spread in a pan and broil the coconut for about 3 minutes. I like burned food and like the coconut pretty dark.

Frost the cupcakes, sprinkle with coconut and garnish with a piece of lime.

Root Beer Ice Cream

My mom got this recipe from a family she adores. I love this recipe, I think it's the reason we got an ice cream machine. (It's just a little countertop one, but works great for us for now.)

Ingredients

1 cup half and half

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup +1/4 cup milk

3 teaspoons root beer extract

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

Root Beer extract is one of my prized possessions. In Utah it's a standard at the grocery store, but I have not been able to find it in the UK.

Follow ice cream machine instructions. We have to place part of our machine in the freezer 24 hours before using. Mix ingredients in a bowl and stir.

Place frozen ice cream machine bowl into machine and start it running. Slowly add the mixture into the machine and keep machine stirring until the ice cream resembles fresh whipped cream (½ hour or more).

Scrape mixture into a freezer proof container and freeze.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies are maybe my favorite cookie from school lunch days. I was one of the kids that loved school lunch. I hardly ever brought lunch from home and really thought the hot lunch at elementary school was delicious. I used the recipe from inspired-by-chocolate-and-cakes.com. I've made a lot of chocolate crinkle cookies in my day and I particularly like this recipe because:

1) it uses cocoa (baking chocolate is a nightmare to find around here)

2) it uses butter and I love butter (a lot of the recipes use oil) and

3) it uses brown sugar (I like brown sugar)

Makes about 27 cookies. (I doubled the recipe and ended up with 54.)

Ingredients

Just over 1/2 cup (125g) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg white
1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 cup powdered (icing) sugar and 1 cup granulated sugar for rolling the cookie balls.

In a mixer, combine the butter, brown sugar, cocoa powder, soda and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth. The batter should be dark brown.

Add the egg and egg white and mix again.

Adding the eggs makes the batter lighter and also makes me want to eat the batter, then feel guilty and apologize to the unborn baby in my stomach for exposing it to raw eggs.

Add the flour and mix until fluffy. I'm kind of in love with how the batter looks.

Refrigerate the batter for two hours. (Or, if your fridge is like mine and there isn't room, then put it in the freezer.) The colder the dough is, the easier it easy to work with.

Heat the oven to 325 degrees F (160 C). Remove the chilled batter and make rounded tablespoons of dough.

Put the powdered and granulated sugar in separate bowls.

Roll the dough first in the granulated sugar and then in the powdered sugar. I like rolling in the granulated sugar because it make the cookies just a little bit crunchier on the outside and prevents the powdered sugar from absorbing into the dough too much.

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool for about five minutes before using a spatula to lift each cookie. (Are you amazed I put in a tray of 12 cookies and took out one with 15?)