Sweets of Summer: Coconut Macaroons

This week I decided to try out Coconut Macaroons, something new for me. An incredibly easy way to make some delicious treats on a hot summer day. The recipe was easy enough to follow, as long as you have an electronic mixer. My little handheld worked just fine and I had no problems getting the egg whites the right texture. Keep in mind that you don’t want to over mix the egg whites into the coconut, the mixture will turn a little soupier than necessary and melt. The only problem that I ran into was that my cookie scoop might be a little large for macaroons so I would try making them just a little smaller. Keep an eye on them and take them out of the oven right when they start to brown, they will cook quickly as soon as they do brown and can change the overall color. The taste was great; the sweet coconut really satisfied my sweet tooth. However, they don’t really keep very well so don’t plan too far ahead for when you will bake them. We are hardwired to associate the taste of coconut with tropical getaways and summer happiness so these little bites made the perfect summer sweet. All-in-all these sweets were well enjoyed and a recipe to be saved.

Sweets of Summer: Lime Sandwich Cookies with Blueberry Filling

I have a confession; I have been slacking off lately and am a week behind schedule. I am fully willing to blame two things; first, it has been incredibly hot and the idea of turning on my oven in my little house with no air conditioning is not pleasant. Second, I am in my final week of class and I have a ten page paper on Shakespeare and Women looming over my head. But finally I made cookies! They just happened to not turn out. This week I tried to make lime cookies with a blueberry frosting filling. The initial recipe that kept cropping up all over the internet was an eggless lime sugar cookie. Absolutely the first thing I noticed is that the dough was way too sticky. I ended up adding almost another half cup of flour in order to maintain the right consistency to chill and roll out the dough. After that it seemed to go smoothly, I baked the cookies for a little over twelve minutes, I took them out right before they started to brown. While I let them cool I undertook the icing, which was easy enough to make. Note: make sure that you have extra powdered sugar. The combination of butter and cream cheese makes the mixture rather soupy until you add some extra powdered sugar. I put it all together and was immediately disappointed. The cookies were rock hard. Eventually, after much internal discourse, I decided that this particular recipe just didn’t work. I think that just regular sugar cookies with a splash or two of lime juice would function just as well. I deemed the cookies inedible, and I had a ton of icing left over. My final verdict? The icing pairs really well with Graham Crackers.

My not so appetizing cookies.

Sweets of Summer: Pink Lemonade Cookies

The first recipe that I decided to try for my Sweets of Summer series was a Pink Lemonade Cookie recipe from Better Homes and Gardens. I was genuinely surprised at the wide variety of recipes that make this cookie, and each one was vastly different. In fact, the first two that I selected were actually the instructions for a box mix that is somewhere out there. After a little bit of looking, and unfortunately reading the comments to these recipes, I just got frustrated and picked the first one from a source that I have heard of. The recipe itself if fairly simple, the only ingredient that I did not have in my kitchen was the pink lemonade concentrate. Making the cookies were easy enough, I would recommend adding a couple of drops of red food coloring to make the cookies look the right shade of pink.  As far as the actual baking goes, you will need a couple of extra minutes in the oven to cook the cookies all of the way through. Keep a close eye on the bottom of the cookies though, the top won’t brown at all, but the bottom will darken quickly especially if you use a dark cookie sheet. When you ice the cookies don’t skimp on how much to use, this icing will go a long way. As far as the taste goes the icing is what really makes the cookie, I added a couple extra teaspoons of lemonade concentrate to the icing and I would highly recommend doing the same. The cookies themselves were just a little bland; I would probably add some extra concentrate or maybe some lemon juice to really up the ante on flavor. If you need to thicken the dough after the extra juice I would use sugar instead of flour, just to make them a little sweeter in the long run. Overall these are good cookies, light enough to eat in the stifling heat without feeling like I am just getting hotter. It is a relief to know that there are options to satisfying my sweet tooth this summer, and I am looking forward to trying out even more new things.

Pink Lemonade Cookies