sprinkle macaroons

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Sup, homies! Happy spring and also happy snow day (!) which leaves us with the best case scenario: a beautiful wintery day where the sun stays up long enough to enjoy it on the drive to (and maybe even from) the gym. These kinds of days are delicious because you get the coziness of the snow and the energy of the extra light, and the light has that perfectly diffused snowy quality that is all fluffy and cloud like. Is there a name for this type of winter weather that seeps into spring? Like Indian Summer, but for winter? And don’t say something like Annoying Winter, that’s not the point of this exercise. 

Speaking of exercise, I’ve been on a remarkable health kick, spawned by a sudden urge to eat kale four times a day. I’ve been eating kale and eggs for breakfasts, kale grilled cheeses for lunches, kale tacos for snacks, kale salads for dinners, I’m definitely going to get sick of it really soon but for now I’m riding it out and feeling excellent. The Adventures of Kalegirl and Eggboy!! Also, World Championship Ice Skating is on! Which is great, obviously, but did you also hear about the 13-year-old Russian figure skater in Junior Worlds who became the first female to land two quads in a program in competition??? Bonkers! The future is now! Additionally, I’ve gotten into so many awesome books recently, like Alon Shaya’s new cookbook, Jessica Merchant’s new cookbook, Stephanie Izard's Gather and Graze, and Call Me By Your Name, so if there was a sunny side of the street to be walking on right now, and if I actually walked anywhere, I'd be there. That's what's going on in my world!

But enough about kale and books, let’s talk about sprinkles. I feel a little funny that I’ve never funfetti’d macaroons before. I don’t know why it took this long but the other day a giant box of sprinkles from Beautiful Briny Sea arrived and I immediately felt compelled to fold them into egg whites, condensed milk, and coconut to make the first macaroons of the season. They were so tasty! Crisp on the outside, rich and moist on the inside. And how do you make a tasty thing tastier? Dip it in chocolate. It felt like the right thing to do, and then it felt more right to coat the chocolate with sprinkles. Eggboy said it was too many sprinkles! Can you believe he let those words exit his mouth?! I was stunned. I love the extreme amount of sprinkles because they add a fantastic crunchy quality that you don’t often find on a macaroon. And they’re fun to look at. And sprinkle flavor is good!! These ones are at least. (Use sprinkles you’d want to eat by the spoonful because you’re essentially doing that here.) I used these chocolate sprinkles in the batter and these rainbow sprinkles on the bottom.

All general sprinkle-flavor dessert rules apply here: do not use sanding sugar in the macaroon mixture because the colors will bleed and use clear imitation vanilla for that nostalgic birthday cake flavor that will also keep your batter bright white. As with almost all of the macaroons that I make these days, these are based on Danny Macaroons' delicious basic macaroon recipe. And speaking of macaroons, I wrote a little piece about them for this cool new huge Tablet feature that you should check out, 100 Most Jewish Foods. 

Happy almost Passover!

sprinnkle macaroons

makes 16

ingredients

1 c (283g) sweetened condensed milk (reserve the rest of the can to add to your morning coffee!)

2 tsp clear imitation vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 (14 oz) bag sweetened shredded coconut

2 large egg whites

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 c (48g) rainbow sprinkles, plus about 1/3 c (63g) more for topping and dipping

3 oz (85g) chocolate (any kind!)

clues

preheat oven to 350ºf. line two baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

in a large bowl, combine the condensed milk, vanilla, and almond extract. mix in the coconut and set aside.

in a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until stiff peaks form. 

fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture and then gently fold in the 1/4 cup of sprinkles. spoon lightly packed 2" balls of the mixture onto the baking sheets, 1" apart and sprinkle the tops with more sprinkles.

bake until golden brown; begin checking for doneness at 18 minutes. remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes on the pans. transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

place the remaining 1/3 cup of sprinkles in a shallow dish. melt the chocolate in a microwave in 30-second increments, stirring after each, or in a saucepan over low heat, stirring often. dip the bottoms of the macaroons in the chocolate, scrape off any excess, and then dip the chocolate in the sprinkles. place back on the parchment paper and let cool at room temp or in the fridge. enjoy!

these can be kept at room temperature for about 3 days or in the fridge for up to a week.