My wife hates coconut.  She just does.  As a child born in early April, one of her greatest fears as a young girl was a birthday cake shaped like a bunny and covered in coconut faux fur.  There you have it, my wife hates coconut.  No problem on my end, since I love my wife and I can live without coconut, so all is good.

This coconut ban however conflicts with one of my favorite Christmas cookies, the coconut infused Chocolate Macaroon.  I figured that if I baked them and took them into work, no one would be harmed in the production of the cookie and I could relive a childhood memory.  Every Christmas my Grandma Franck would prepare the most amazing cookie tray and my favorite was the Chocolate Macaroon.  Crunchy exterior, chewy coconut interior, with rich chocolate flavor throughout.  It was one tasty cookie.

A few years back, after trying to recreate Grandma Franck’s Chocolate Macaroons and failing miserably, I decided to ask her about the cookie, since the only information I could get was that she used to bake them on a paper sack.  This scared me a bit, but apparently paper sacks were the parchment paper of yonder year.  Unfortunately, Grandma Franck was already well into her 90s and suffering from advanced dementia, so she really could not lend much help to my Chocolate Macaroon struggles.  I was on my own, until a few years back my mom gave me an incredible binder containing all of Grandma Franck’s recipes, including…  the Chocolate Macaroon.

Being fearless (and a tad cocky) in my cookie making abilities, I figured it was time to tackle the Chocolate Macaroons once again.  Following the recipe containing her handwritten notes, I gave it my best try and once again, as my 11-year-old son would say, “Fail!”  They tasted alright, but they were way too thin.  Almost like a cracker or using a more palatable term, they were crisp.  I had accidently created a Cookie Crisp.  Not where I was headed, but not a complete disaster.  Just goes to show, I’m not such a bad baker, but I’m certainly no Grandma Franck.

This cookie…  way too thin to be an acceptable Chocolate Macaroon.

From the aerial view, the cookies look about right.

A plate full of Cookie Crisps.

COOKIE CRISPS

2 Egg Whites

½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract

½ teaspoon Salt

1 cup Sugar

1½ ounces Semi-Sweet Chocolate

1½ cups Coconut

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Melt the semi-sweet chocolate and set aside.

Beat egg whites, vanilla extract, and salt until foamy.

Add 2 Tablespoons of sugar at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Once all of the sugar has been added, continue mixing until the mixture can stand in peaks.

Fold in the melted chocolate.

Fold in the coconut.

Drop by teaspoons onto parchment paper lined baking sheets.

Bake for 20 minutes.

 

Makes about 26 cookies.

Revised Source:  my beloved Grandma Franck, no one ever baked Christmas cookies as good as you did.