So I made the chocolate chip coconut macaroons from the recipe I shared in my last post.

Actually, my cousin made them first. She was very excited: she even went out and bought parchment paper! But she called me doubtfully while pulling them out of the oven. “I don’t think I did this right,” she mumbled. “They’re not chewy like macaroons are supposed to be.”

Oh, no, I assured her. They’re not supposed to be chewy! These are “light and airy” macaroons, not the typical chewy-cakey-sticky-heavy macaroons.

Oh, she considered, crunching away. “Maybe I did it right then. But the smaller cookies turned out better than the larger, fist-sized balls.”

She’s right: the optimum size for these cookies is one teaspoon-full (from your flatware set). I also decreased the amount of coconut slightly, from 5 1/3 cups to 5 cups, so that the batter wasn’t quite so dry. When I folded in the coconut and chocolate chips, I added the coconut cup by cup and made sure to fully coat all the coconut flakes with the egg white mixture so that it would all be sticky.

She really blew me away when she told me she beat the eggs by hand. Wow! I used an electric hand mixer and it still took a while to get those egg whites to stand in peaks!

Realize that it still might seem like the cookies are not completely binding when you drop the teaspoon-fulls onto the baking sheet, but they will meld together in the oven and produce a cookie that has a lot of air thoroughout, giving it a delightful crunch and lightness.

As I’ve said before, these macaroons get rave reviews at dinner parties, and I completely agree. The only downside is that it is easy to get carried away and not realize how many you are eating! They are utterly delicious!

I made these light and airy macaroons in 2003 and noted “big crowd-pleaser” on my recipe card, so I thought I’d pull them out again this year. Most macaroons are dense balls of coconut cake but my memory tells me that this recipe produced ones with a weight more like marengue cookies. In other words: macaroons that can almost float.

I’ll post a photo back here after I actually make them (either tomorrow or Saturday), but wanted to get the recipe up in case anyone needed it before then. (See my next post for a photo, tips and a recipe adjustment!)
Chocolate Chip Macaroons
Makes 4-6 dozen

4 egg whites
1 cup sugar (I prefer organic, unbleached, unrefined sugar)
12 oz. chocolate chips (this year I’m using organic dark chocolate chips — yum!)*
1 Tbsp. fresh orange juice
1 tsp. grated orange zest
pinch of salt
5 1/3 cups of shredded coconut (about as much as typically comes in a package, though I like to get mine out of the organic bulk foods bin at my local natural grocery store)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with baking parchment.

Beat egg whites until stiff. Gradually beat in sugar.

Beat in orange juice, orange zest, and salt. Fold in coconut and chocolate chips.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared sheets. Bake 20 minutes.

*The originally published recipe, “Chocolate Macaroons” by Mollie Franks of the San Diego Hadassah, CA, called for 12 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted to be added in with the orange juice. I adjusted it to use chocolate chips instead.