Coconut Macaroons

Today, I dove into BordenTM Eagle Brand Condensed Sweetened Milk's "The Dessert Lovers' Hand-Book" (1969) for one of my favorite classic sweets.



Coconut Macaroons

(Makes about 1 1/2 dozen 1-1/2 inch diameter cookies)

2/3 cup Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk
2-2/3 cups (two 3 1/2-oz. cans) flaked coconut
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon almond extract

In medium-sized bowl, combine all ingredients until well-blended.

coconut used to come in cans, now you can get it in bags

Drop by teaspoons, about 1-inch apart onto well-greased sheet.

Bake in a moderate (350 degree) oven, 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Immediately remove from baking sheet.  Cool.

VARIATION: (this is from the book) GLACE FRUIT MACAROONS: Add 1 cup mixed glace fruit to above ingredients. Proceed as above. If desired, garnish tops of macaroons with whole glace red or green cherry or whole nut meats before baking.

NOTES (this is from me)

Because I am a greedy pig when it comes to coconut goodies, I used tablespoons instead of a teaspoons to drop my cookies.  They will cook more thoroughly if they are smaller.

Once you take the sheet from the oven, I would also recommend letting the macaroons sit for a few minutes to allow them to firm up a bit before removing to cool.

They may spread a out a tidge on the pan when baking, but you can re-form them when you transer them to the cooking rack.  I would lay out a sheet of wax paper so the cookies don't droop through the rack bars.

Glace fruit is another term for candied fruit (which in case you didn't know, glace/candied is a finishing process where the dried fruit is moistened then dipped in a super concentrated simple sugar syrup and allowed to dry).

I topped mine with maraschino cherry halves, but you could use almonds too.  You could also melt some chocolate and dip the macaroons in so that their little bottoms are covered.