The Recipe Said Macaroons...

Hello faithful reader(s). Sally Scrumptialumptious and I offer our most sincere apologies for being so remiss in our posts of late. We promise you that all kinds of tasty concoctions have passed through our oven door (and into our tummies) over the past month and a half, including chocolate cinnamon cookies, guayaba and buttercream sponge cake, chocolate sugar ginger cookies, fortune cookies, and many more. It's just hard to type a blog post with flour on your fingers.

Anywho, summer is here, school's out, and last night Sally and I were feeling awfully sad and lonely. We decided that we needed something warm and gooey and sugary to fill up that big empty hole that this past semester had left in our hearts. After consulting various cookbooks, pantries, and frigidaires, we concluded that, as per usual, we didn't have key ingredients for the one cookie we craved the most -- macaroons.

Now, what makes a macaroon so goshdarn delectible is this: When you bite into it, the first texture you encounter is a sort of crunchy shell. Then, that crunch gives way to an ooey gooey feel-good center that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside. It's like warm, sugary bondo for the soul. As far as Sally and I can tell, the two basic kinds of macaroon are coconut and almond. Having neither coconut or almond, we had to get creative...

Sally's Pecan Chocolate Bondo Macaroons

1/2 c. white sugar
2 to 2-1/2 c. chopped pecans
1 oz. coarsley chopped semi-sweet baking chocolate
2 egg whites
splash of pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Bake for 17ish minutes at 325 degrees, rotating the pan halfway through.

We were delightfully surprised!! The cookies were yummy and very macaroon-like, with our only concern being that they seemed eager to fall apart. A bit longer in the oven and waiting for them to cool completely before removing them from the pan helped (what can we say...we were eager to taste them...), but perhaps chopping the pecans more finely would make a difference as well? We'll let you know.

Bake and comment! And remember, as Paula Deen always says, "Watch out for that goat, y'all!"

Signing off -- Sally and Co.