Coconut Macaroons Recipe with Three Variations

Last week a friend and I held our very own DIY homemade Afternoon Tea! We're both very into our tea and cake, so we thought it would be a good idea to both make a selection of goodies to bring along to our afternoon catch up. One of my bakes was a selection of coconut Macaroons- I love them, there's something charmingly old fashioned about them, they are very sweet, moreish and so easy to make. I experimented with three different variations to jazz up the basic mix. Here are the recipes!

Basic Coconut Macaroons recipe- makes 16 

Ingredients:

• 200g Desiccated Coconut
• 100g Caster Sugar
• 2 free-range eggs

Method: Pre-heat the oven to 180oc and grease a baking tray, or line with baking parchment

1. Add the desiccated coconut and sugar together into a large bowl
2. Beat the eggs and add them to the bowl with the coconut and sugar
3. Use your hands (or a tablespoon if you'd rather not get messy) to thoroughly mix 
4. Using a tablespoon as a guide, shape the mixture into 16 pyramids and arrange on the baking tray
5. Bake for aprox 15 minutes, or until they turn golden

So that's the basic recipe and they are really lovely just plain like this, but I thought it could be interesting to try some different flavours. These are the three that I tried:

Flavour variations: Add your chosen flavour ingredients once you have made the basic mix and stir to combine

1. 100g of roughly chopped glace cherries added to the mix make for a lovely chewy macaroon
2. Add around 18 squares (aprox 3 chocolate bars, or add to taste) of milk chocolate (or experiment with other chocolates) roughly chopped into the mix. Alternatively you could use chocolate chips. The chocolate melts inside the macaroons, really yummy
3. A couple of handfuls of fresh or frozen raspberries. I used frozen raspberries and added them straight intro the mix while still  frozen. They may break up a little as you stir them in, but this was my favourite of all the combinations I tried- the raspberries add a lovely tart sweetness to the macaroons and a pink colour.

All that's left to do then is enjoy your Macaroons! If you've made variations on the traditional Coconut Macaroons I'd love to try them to- share your ideas in the comments below! Happy baking!

This was our afternoon tea table- I can't take credit for the beautiful set-up, my friend set it all out beautifully and also made a georgeous pear Tarte Tatin and lots of other tasty bakes. I'd definitely recommend holding your own DIY Afternoon Tea, it was really good fun both in preparing and demolishing!