Coconut Macaroons

These are by far the easiest cookie to make, and yet people think they are very impressive and always ask me to make more.  The secret to this one, as Martha Stewart always tells us, is in the ingredients.  Her recipe says to use unsweetened coconut, but tells you it's fine if you use sweetened (just don't add as much sugar to the recipe).  Well I'm telling you that I've made these cookies with each kind, and you have to use the unsweetened coconut.  The sweetened kind is sticky and creates an entirely different, chewy consistency to the macaroons that doesn't come close to being as good as the ones made with the unsweetened.  Okay, coconut sermon over.

Also, for bonus fun, I made half my cookies red so I could have a cute little candy cane theme to the packaging when I put these in the cookie gift basket.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325°.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, combine ingredients.  Mix well.
3. Dampen tablespoon with cold water.  Scoop a generous tablespoon (about 1 1/2 tablespoons) of coconut mixture and lightly tap onto the cookie sheet for mound to drop out.  Place cookies about 1 inch apart.  Moisten measuring spoon periodically so that coconut will continue to slide off of spoon instead of sticking.
4. When I'd scooped out about half of my dough, I added red icing coloring (different from food coloring- it has a bolder color and doesn't make dough runny) and mixed very well to get the saturated color you see.  I continued scooping the mounds until my sheet was covered.
5. Bake until plain macaroons are golden brown, 16-17 minutes, rotating halfway through.  Let cool on a wire rack.