Monday, March 10, 2008

Spring Macaroons and Egg Chick Craft......

Here is my friend Crystal in our kitchen...we are getting ready to make our favorite cookies...Macaroons !!!! Oh yeah !!! Ever since our trip to Idaho and having our Cousin Cassidy's scrumptious Macaroons ( she is a baker for a sweet Coffee Shoppe in Idaho ) i have been craving them ever since.. well Crystal didn't know that, and she just happened to bring the ingredients over on Sunday.. because she was craving them too !!!


We both had never made them before and her vintage recipe book said to add the ingredients as follows.. we did so and the first batch was soup.. so she began to add more to it and tweaked it til it looked better.. we even doubled the batch to make a larger cookie then it actually called for.



We are just having a good ole time in the kitchen with little Miss Bri coming in periodically to help out.



Crystal separated the egg whites and Miss Bri whisked them up.



All the ingredients were added in the bowl, as Miss Bri took turns with the hand mixer. The cookies didn't run, so we thought maybe it was good to go..but it took forever to cook or even see any change. The recipe said to bake till golden brown, nothing was really happening, so I decided to tweak the temperature up to 280... It still took a little while to bake and watched carefully, since it didn't say an appropriate cooking time.. I am guessing each batch took about 35 to 40 minutes to reach the golden brown color.. it was well worth the wait. These babies were delicious !!!!!
So here you go folks, the recipe to make them yourself..just have patience it will really be worth it in the end.

Vintage Macaroons:

Preheat oven to 280 degrees
1/4 lb. shredded coconut
1 tsp. salt
3 egg whites
sweetened condensed milk
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Add coconut, salt, egg whites and only enough sweetened condensed milk to mixture to make a thick paste consistency. If there is too much liquid just add more coconut to the mixture and possibly another egg white......This is only enough for one batch, so you can double or triple this recipe. The key to a perfect macaroon is making the mixture a thick glue like paste. We used heaping tablespoons of the mixture placing it on a lightly greased cookie sheet...bake till it is golden brown like the picture above. But be sure to keep an eye on them , since ovens may differ..you don't want them to burn. Enjoy !!!


Spring Egg Chick Craft
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Crystal was sweet enough to bring over a little craft project for us to do with blown out eggs.

I chose the egg that was colored yellow and made this little Spring chick. We used acrylic paints and sprayed them with a gloss finish to protect the paint from rubbing off.

To make a chick: blow out an egg, color egg yellow, either with food color or paint. Let dry. Paint on two dots for yes with ivory, a pupil in black, deep yellow for a triangle beak, add cheeks with pink..details of feathers were simple lines dashed around the body and painted wing outline.

I then made a paper hat from scrap papers, gluing it with craft glue. After you have painted, spray the chick with a gloss finish, after that dries, use a fine black permanent pen and add in the details around the eyes and eyelids, beak and wings... there you go, place it in a cute nest or egg cup for a sweet whimsical Spring decoration, perfect for Easter.

3 comments:

  1. It looks like you all had lots of fun! I love coconut macaroons too and your little chick is adorable!
    Hugs,
    Kelli

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  2. Oh great ideas--I love the fact that the cookies are gluten free!! I don't love the fact that they are kind of hard to make. But I am putting them in my file, and perhaps one day I shall try. Love the Egg!! Hey , we are coming to Redmond near the end of April. I hope the weather won't be rain the entire time!!

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  3. Yay! Fun post! I'll have to make a post on my blog too, linking to yours.

    I've been holding back with much restraint and amazingly have three cookies left.

    The additional ingredients are calling to me to make more! Should I make them for church some sunday? I think so, especially since I plan to buy a huge bag of chocolate soon, I'll make some chocolate dipped ones! YUM!

    I think once we figured out the consistency and increased the temp that it wasn't too hard. Like any attempt at baking something for the first time it takes a bit of figuring out.

    Well, I'll stop making my post in yours.

    XOXO,
    Crystal

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