Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons

Coconut and chocolate are two comfort foods that hold a lot of memories for me; coconut because it is an ingredient of many dishes of India, the country where I grew up. Coconut is used in curries, chutneys, cookies, barfis and much more. My earliest memory of chocolate however, is my dad’s sweet tooth. When I was a child he often bought slabs of Cadbury chocolate after dinner that we shared. Later when my older brothers worked abroad, they returned with boxes of chocolates from around the world and my dad enjoyed these as much, if not more than, the rest of us. I have a sneaking suspicion that my brothers bought the chocolates to impress dad and more for him than for the rest of us.

Looking out for fair trade chocolate for this assignment was a challenge. I looked at chocolates from around the world at the store and did not find any chocolates with a fair trade practice label on it. I hope that the chocolate I bought to make these macaroons were made using fair trade practices and without using child labor in the cocoa fields. However, it was an opportunity to talk with my 12 year old son about cocoa and how chocolate is made while he assisted me to make the macaroons and dip them in the melted chocolate. Surprisingly, he was already aware of the controversy last year at a popular US chocolate factory involving alleged exploitation of foreign students. We spoke at length about the child labor used in the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast.

Recipe for the Macaroons
1 package (14 OZ or 5 and 1/3 cup) coconut flakes (I used Baker’s angel flake coconut)
2/3 cup sugar
6 tbsp flour
¼ tsp salt
4 egg whites
1 tsp almond extract

Mix coconut, sugar, flour, salt in a large bowl.
Stir in beaten egg whites and almond extract and mix well.
Drop rounded tablespoons of batter on a greased and floured cookie sheet.
Bake 325 degree F (300 for convection oven) for 20 minutes.
Remove immediately from cookie sheet and cool on parchment paper.
Makes around 24-26 macaroons
When cooled dip in melted-chocolate and let it dry on wax paper.

The macaroons turned out crunchy on the outside and sweet and moist on the inside. The chocolate gave them added texture and taste.