Coconut Macaroons

I've always loved stories about food, especially when they include recipes. I'm sure you are shocked - shocked - by this confession. It all started with Stone Soup. It's a kids book and at the end, there is a rhyming recipe for Stone Soup.

Heat some water in a pot.

Add some stones you've scrubbed a lot...

I wanted to make that soup. In my kindergartener mind, by making that soup, the story would come to life, and I'd be able to eat the same soup as the little pigs and bears and rabbits in the book. What could be better? However, my mom wasn't convinced that rocks and soup made a good combination.

This fascination continued all through my childhood. When I read Little House on the Prairie and Laura and her sisters made maple syrup candy in the snow, I had to try it, running outside in the winter with Aunt Jemima in tow. I don't know what happened, but it didn't really work for me. That weekend, we ate our usual Saturday morning pancakes sans syrup, since I had dumped it all on a snowbank in the backyard.

My friend Jenny must intuitively know that I still adore books about food. To keep me entertained during late night baby feedings, she gave me the book A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenburg, who is best known for her blog Orangette.

I started this blog because of Orangette. I love her prose, her photography, and of course her cooking. If imitation is the best form of flattery, then Orangette should be tickled pink, since I'm sure she has inspired a lot of cooks and bloggers out there.

I devoured the book in three days, mostly read in the middle of the night by the light of my son's snail-shaped lamp. In the book, Molly makes coconut macaroons. I'm on a big coconut kick right now, and after making the tiramisu with all those egg whites leftover, and knowing that an egg-white omelet just didn't sound nearly as appetizing, it didn't take long to decide on whipping these babies up.

They are what every Mounds bar aspires to be, and a big step up from my days of eating maple syrup snow, if I do say so myself.

This recipe makes about 12-16 macaroons, depending on how large you make them.

Coconut Macaroons with Chocolate Ganache

3 cups sweetened shredded coconut
3/4 cup sugar
5 or 6 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 oz finely chopped bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup heavy cream

Place coconut, sugar, and egg whites in a heavy saucepan. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, 10-15 minutes. The mixture will start looking very creamy as it heats, and then slowly look a bit drier with individual flakes of coconut becoming discernable. Stop cooking when mixture no longer looks creamy but is still sticky and moist. Remove mixture from heat, stir in vanilla. Spread mixture out into a pie plate to allow to cool quickly, and refrigerate until cold (30 minutes).

Using your hands or a small ice cream scoop, scoop and firmly pack the coconut mixture into small balls. Space them evenly on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 300 degree until evenly golden, about 30 minutes. Cool completely on wire rack. Set the rack over the baking sheet to catch chocolate ganache drips.

Put chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat the cream in small saucepan over medium heat, swirling occasionally, until hot and steaming (do not boil). Pour hot cream over chocolate and let sit for one minute, then stir until smooth. Spoon warm ganache generously over macaroons.

Refrigerate macaroons on the rack until ganache sets, at least 2 hours. Place in airtight container and refrigerate or freeze. Macaroons will keep in the refrigerator for a week, in the freezer for a month.