Step Away from the Cookies

Tis the season for over indulgence. This is the time of year I love and I loath.  The time of year when pounds of butter are not only stuffed into my freezer, they are also currently making a home on more than one shelf of the fridge. The pantry is dangerously overfull with marshmallows, chocolate chips, coconut shreds and sugars of brown, white and raw. I can feel a second chin bulging out just thinking about it all.

Cooling after baking.

At work I sit in a office all day, surrounded by tins of sweets- cast offs from coworkers, gifts from clients, omiyagi (Hawaii/Japanese tradition of bringing gifts when you visit friends) and candy bars used for guest activities. This time of year I end up eating cookies that aren't good, they're just readily available, and I end up returning again and again to the conference room for 'just one more' snack. It's usually not satisfying and it's certainly not healthy. So what's a girl to do?

The answer came to me yesterday as I pondered what to do with the 32(!!!!!) egg whites I had in the freezer from my last stint making Likikoi Curd.  I'll make my own combative goodie that will satisfy my sugar-craving needs and keep me away from the rest of the junk. A cookie-type sweet that is loaded with fiber and potassium, has a light vanilla fragrance the lingers on your tastebuds and just enough sweet to satiate without overpowering. An easy-to make treat that is dairy free, gluten free, kosher,  and downright tropical. I am now convinced that Coconut Macaroons may in fact be the world's perfect food.

Now, I am the girl that can easily put away half a box of Peppermint JoJo's before I've realized I opened the package, so its a relief to know that about 1 1/2 of these little "Hawaiian Snowballs" leaves me happily sugared but able to walk away from them (though undoubtedly I will return for that other 1/2... you can't leave a wounded cookie on the battlefield!) Absolutely perfect.

So let's get cookin' the magic, shall we?

A few hints to this recipe:
#1- Use quality vanilla. I am unabashedly a vanilla snob and will only use fragrant Mexican vanilla.  Anytime I am within a 4-hour driving distance, I make a point to 'Run for the Border Louise'. I get a kick out of shopping for vanilla in liquor stores and begging the store merchant to let me smell the bottles too. But that's another story...
#2- Beat your egg whites with a mixer until they ALMOST form meringuey peaks. Add the vanilla and salt at this point and beat for just another few seconds to incorporate.
#3- Don't use the sweetened, flaked coconut you find in the regular grocery store's baking aisle. It's decent coconut, but the sugar/sweet ratio will be thrown off in this recipe. Shop a health food store for unsweetened coconut (usually called (aptly) "Macaroon Coconut") instead. I get mine at the local food co-op, Kokua Market.
 #4- What do you do if you don't go through egg yolks in mass quantity like me and regularly have whites available? Build your supply, slowly. David Lebovitz (a dessert genius who blogs from Paris) taught me that it's OK to freeze egg whites. I tried it and sure enough, it works like a charm. He suggests using an ice cube tray to freeze individual whites in each compartment. Also brilliant. Then you won't be trying to remember how many you put in that re-purposed yogurt container you used and then measuring and dividing (and divining) to figure our how much of your container filled with frozen whites you need per batch. Not that that's a scenario that I am familiar with... ehem.
 #5- Share. It's a food for the masses. Your gluten-free/ Celiac-cursed friends will love you. Your dairy-free/ lactose-avoiding friends will love you. Your kosher or passover-observing friends will love you. Your girlfriends on a diet will also love you. See? The world's most perfect food.

Hawaiian Snowballs

• 3 cups of unsweetened coconut flakes
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• pinch salt

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine coconut & sugar in a large bowl. Beat egg whites with a mixer. Add vanilla and salt to eggs and blend. Add meringuish blob to the dry mix and incorporate with a wooden spoon or your hands (I use a combo of both).


Roll into 2" balls and set onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. The batter is sticky, so keeping your hands slightly wet with water while shaping may help.

C'est super fancy.

Bake 15 minutes until lightly golden on top. Transfer entire sheet to a cooling rack and cool for 30 minutes.

If you're feeling fancy, you can dip or drizzle melted chocolate over the coconut magic when they've finished cooling.

Makes approximately 20 snowballs. Indulge and feel good. The double chin will bid adieu in January.

Spoiler alert- immediate family may see these arriving in the mail soon.