Coconut Macaroon Pop (Tutorial)

I never really liked coconut growing up. It was not until a few years ago when I tried it again and loved it (funny how your tastes change as you grow). While surfing the blogesphere I came across this macaroon recipe. It's quick, simple and taste good too. I was also influenced by Bakerella's cake pops when doing this tutorial. I think it was easier to do these than cake pops! Guess I just need to practice the cake pops a bit more ;-) Oh and since the next holiday around the corner is Valentine's day, I decided to make this tutorial Valentine's themed.

Coconut Macaroons

From Bon Appetit Hon

Makes approximately 24

Ingredients:

• 14 ounces sweetened flake coconut
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon almond extract

Directions:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Place the coconut in a food processor (I used the Magic Bullet - one of the "as seen on TV" things that actually works!) and pulse until the coconut is chopped into rice size pieces.

In the work bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk together the egg whites, sugar, and salt. When smooth, add the cornstarch and 1 teaspoon of almond extract and whisk until smooth. Add the coconut and continue to whisk until it is evenly coated.

Using a small ice cream scoop (approximately 1 tablespoon) portion out the macaroons onto your parchment. This is wear I molded the macaroons into hearts. I used the small heart cutter from Wilton. Put the cutter on the parchment, place a tablespoon of the mix in the heart and use your fingers to press the mix to form the heart. Carefully lift the cutter - ta dah! A heart! Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until they are golden on the bottom and just browned on top. Cool on the sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Now it's time to put them on a stick... 1. Stick a lollipop stick in the bottom of the heart (bout half way in).
2. Remove the stick, dip it in melted chocolate and re-insert into the macaroon. This will help keep the macaroon on the stick when the chocolate hardens. After all the macaroons have been "sticked" put them in the fridge until the chocolate is hardened.
3. Now its time to decorate! I used dark chocolate and red candy melts to decorate my pops. I dipped some completely in chocolate and others I just drizzled the chocolate. I did some with heart sprinkles too. Just have fun with it :)

Tips for decorating with chocolate:
~Put some chocolate in a sandwich size Ziploc bag, snip a teeny hole in one corner for easy drizzling
~Be sure to get all the excess chocolate off the macaroon so you can really see the heart. I found it was easy to use a small spatula or butter knife to gently scrape off the excess (especially where the curves of the heart meet at the top)
~If you don't have Styrofoam around to stick the pops in, I saw this idea on a blog somewhere... use a colander to hold the pops! (The hard part is finding a colander in which the sticks fit, but I actually found one)
If you don't wanna stick them, you can just decorate them too. I made a few larger heart macaroons and dipped each side in chocolate and drizzled with the red candy melts.

To wrap them up, I covered them with small plastic candy bags. I sealed them with red ribbon and a vintage valentine cutout I made myself :) You can find vintage valentine images on the internet. Print them on photo paper, then use a large punch to cut them out (I happen to have a large circular punch around.)

What a cute gift to give to the people you love! I hope you enjoy :) ~Cara Lee

Holiday Party

This weekend my BF and I headed down to Chesapeake, VA to see his cousin's Christmas light display (I kind of refer to his cousin as the Clark Griswold of Chesapeake, VA - see video I posted ;-). We also went down to attend his and his wife's holiday party. I decided to contribute some sweets since you really can never have enough during the holidays.



So for the party I made a cake and some cake pops. This was my second attempt at Bakerella's cake pop creation. Flavors: red velvet, chocolate and chocolate peppermint. As for decor, I stuck to basic sprinkles. They took forever to make but I was happy with the result overall - much better than before.
For the cake I had this really cute basic winter wonderland idea in my head. But it did not execute as nice as I wanted. I brought all my materials to their house and assembled and decorated there, but I still felt out of my element I guess. Not to mention I had a huge gaping hole in the fondant and had to patch it up. It was so frustrating. I just wanted to pay tribute to his cousin's Christmas lights and winter. This is what I ended up with.... not my fave cake, but it was presentable. Most important: the cake tasted good and was moist ;-) Flavors were: vanilla almond cake with vanilla SMBC and chocolate ganache as well as red velvet with cream cheese frosting. Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season... can't believe how fast the month is flying by!