Vanilla Bean Coconut Macaroons
This recipe is for all of you coconut lovers out there; there is no chocolate, no fruit, nothing to distract from the sweet, rich, tropical flavor of coconut, supported by warm, indulgent vanilla bean. The exterior is golden with a crispy chew and the interior is soft, chewy, creamy coconut bliss. These are another of my husband’s favorites from the goodie trays, but he especially loves them fresh from the oven. Coconut macaroons have been appearing on my holiday goodie trays since the very beginning, but I tried several different iterations and variations of recipes before finally settling on this one.
One of the things that I like best about this recipe (aside from the outstanding flavor and texture) is that they are by far the simplest, most straight forward recipe I make for the holidays. I usually leave them until the end, a nice easy recipe to wrap up all the frantic baking with. That being said, there are a few things to be aware of:
- These are lightly adapted from Ina Garten’s Coconut Macaroon Recipe. In Ina’s recipe, she calls for sweetened coconut. However, every time I have ever tried to make these with sweetened coconut, the sugar from the coconut combines with the sweetened condensed milk and the egg whites and ends up puddling around the base of the cookies, if the cookies themselves don’t just run all over the pan. Long story short, I would not recommend swapping the unsweetened coconut for sweetened.
- I mentioned that I leave these until the end because of the simplicity of the recipe – I also leave them until the end because they are not very make ahead friendly. When you store the macaroons in a closed container, the moisture from the interior softens the exterior and you lose the lovely texture on the exterior.
- I like to really compact these into the cookie scoop giving them a nice rounded, almost snowball like appearance. If you opt for a looser scoop, make sure you smooth any stray bits of coconut that may be sticking out from the cookies back into the main body of the cookie. Any stray bits poking out from the cookie are prone to burning and may result in a bitter flavor.
If you don’t mind a little bit of extra effort, I recommend making your own sweetened condensed milk for this recipe. The sweetened condensed milk can be made well in advance, and I love the ability to vary the flavor of the sweetened condensed milk to enhance and/or compliment the flavor of whatever I am using it in. If you would rather just buy the sweetened condensed milk in a can or pouch, absolutely no judgement here, you will still have fantastic macaroons to enjoy and/or share.
Vanilla Bean Coconut Macaroons
Equipment
- Mixing bowls (medium and large)
- Electric mixer (hand held or stand)
- measuring cups (or kitchen scale)
- measuring spoons
- cookie scoop (2 teaspoon)
- baking sheets
Ingredients
- 14 oz shredded unsweetened coconut
- 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- scraped seeds from 1 vanilla bean
- 2 egg whites room temp
- ⅛ cup sugar
- ¼ tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Combine the coconut, condensed milk, vanilla and vanilla bean seeds in a large bowl and mix well.14 oz shredded unsweetened coconut, 14 oz sweetened condensed milk, 1 tsp vanilla, scraped seeds from 1 vanilla bean
- In a medium mixing bowl, beat the egg whites, sugar and salt until medium firm peaks form. Gently fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture.2 egg whites, 1/8 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp salt
- Using a 2 teaspoon cookie scoop, drop the mixture onto the prepared baking sheets leaving ½” between each macaroon.
- Bake for about 20 minutes or until light golden and firm. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
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