Fool's Macaroons

These coconut macaroons are so simple, any fool with a bowl and an oven could make them. Sweet and light, they're the perfect thing to have after a meal with a cup of tea. Or to bring to a party, or to have for breakfast....whatever you're into. I've forgotten where I found this recipe, but I've been making them for years, and thought it was one worth sharing!

                                                For about 16 macaroons you will need

                                                                   4 egg whites
                                                                200g castor sugar
                                                           320g dessicated coconut

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees (C)

Whisk or stir everything until the three ingredients come lightly together.

With wet hands, scoop up half a handful of the mixture and roll it into a ball in your two hands.

Continue making the balls, placing them on a baking tray as you go.

Bake for 15 minutes, until the macaroons are just starting to go a bit brown. If you take them out at this stage there will still be nice and soft inside.

Cool. Store. Eat. Repeat!

Tips:

These are quite sweet, but you can adjust the recipe to your own taste, i.e. using more or less coconut.

In Dublin I like to buy dessicated coconut in asian food shops, as you can usually get pretty big bags of the stuff there (500g, 1000g) for under a fiver.

Enjoy!

Joan

A Monster Post to Defeat the Fairy Cake.

Dearest readers, I trust you are all well and enjoying that lovely September sunshine which heralds back to school and college. As you know I have been fostering a little love affair with cupcakes since before the conception of this blog. My cooking endeavors will all to often end in whipping up a quick batch of cupcakes for some friend or other who needs some sugary love at that particular point in time. Although this is beyond a pleasurable activity I do feel that this has held me back in my cooking explorations as they are such a handy failsafe. So much easier to produce something you know from a recipe you trust than reaching up to the mountainous pile of cookery books opening at random and running with it. I’m making a vow with myself not to produce anymore batches for a little while at least, in order to force my self to branch out and must ask you wonderful friends to call my bluff if I ARRIVE BARING A TRAY OF THEM!

Hence this last monster post to get them out of my system. Read on to learn my secret recipe and the tips and tricks I’ve learnt in my time as a cupcake baker. I hope these little beauties will continue to be made… just in other peoples houses.

The cupcake mix:

Mix:

125g butter

125g sugar

2 eggs

125g flour

a heaped tea spoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

together using an electric beater

Add:

a generous splash of milk and mix again.

Bake for 15 to 20mins @ gas mark 6.

For the icing:

I use loads of different recipes for this depending on my mood but your basic yummy one is simply 150g unsalted butter and 250g icing sugar with a little vanilla essence and a few drops of food coloring. Use an electric beater to whiz this all up and there you have your icing!

These will give you about 12 cupcakes.

 Your key to the perfect cupcake:

• The temperature of the butter you use in the icing is absolutely vital you're looking for butter that's soft but not runny. I usually stick it in the microwave for a sec but you have to watch it carefully as the second it goes runny there's no point using it as the icing will turn out horrible.
• Don't open the oven while they are baking as they will sink.
• The icing on a cupcake is its crowning glory. Never ever slap it on with a knife, the result looks child like and totally ridiculous. Cupcakes should be small perfect moments. The should NOT looking like they’ve been smushed because your icing decoration skills aren’t up to par. use an icing bag and tip (the largest of the metal kind with zig zag edges) both available very cheaply from kitchen shops such as Kitchen Compliments on Chatham Street -  http://www.kitchencomplements.ie/kc/Main/Home.asp or Stock on South King Street.
• Guide the tip of the icing bag with your left hand. Twist the top of the bag with your right in order to push the icing out.
• Never use synthetic vanilla essence. Its horrible. Most shops carry natural and synthetic and although the natural kind is considerably more synthetic bare in mind that it is the predominant flavor of your cakes and your icing and one can always tell the difference instantly.
• When spooning the cupcake mix into the cases poor a boiling kettle over the spoon that you use so that the mix slides of the spoon without any effort at all, creating a perfect shape.