Chewy Almond Macaroons #CreativeCookieExchange

Chewy almond macaroons are super simple to make, delicious to eat, and beautiful on a platter for your tea party, brunch or shower. Made with whipped egg whites, they are simultaneously fluffy and chewy.

If you ever make a custard dessert, like banana cream pie, that calls for only egg yolks, make sure to save the egg whites in an airtight container in your refrigerator. They are perfect for these macaroons!

This recipe is easy since, aside from whipping the eggs, the whole thing mixes in the food processor. I had them made, start to finish in under half an hour. Seriously. They are chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside and even a non-sweet lover like me couldn’t stop at just one. There is no higher accolade.

Ingredients
4 egg whites
8 oz or 225g ground almonds
10 oz or 280g sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
About 24-30 roasted, unsalted almonds

Method
Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C. Line your cookie sheet with a piece of parchment. I usually put a small shot of cooking spray between the parchment and the cookie sheet to help the parchment stop sliding around as you move the tray from counter top to oven. Learned that little trick the hard way. It wasn’t pretty.

Beat your egg whites with a whisk until they are nice and frothy.

Put your ground almonds in the food processor and add in one quarter of the egg whites. Eyeball it. No need to measure. Process it for a count of 10-ish.

Now add half of your sugar. Process again until thoroughly mixed. Scrape the sides down if necessary.

Add another quarter of the egg whites. Process again.

Now add the rest of the sugar. Process again.

The original recipe I was almost following said you should be able to form balls out of the dough so you should add just enough of the remaining egg white to get ball-making consistency. But, I’m telling you, this stuff was sticky and I could see that making balls would be an enormous mess.

So, I added enough egg whites to make the dough the consistency of a very thick butter cream icing, that is to say, one that would hold its shape but could still be put in a piping bag to be squeezed out of a large cake decorating tip. (I suppose you could also drop spoonfuls on to your cookie tray. They wouldn't be as pretty but they sure would taste the same.)

If you think that piping sounds like a good idea, add another 1/4 of the egg whites. Process again.

Add in the baking powder and pinch of salt. Process again.

Only you can judge so if you need to add the last quarter of the egg whites. I threw it away.
On your parchment covered cookie sheet, just squeeze out a circle of dough and then fill it in, finishing with a nice point in the middle.

Top each macaroon with a roasted almond.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden on the bottoms and around the top. You do not want them to dry out. The smell of baking almonds is heavenly.

Cool on a wire rack, although I defy anyone not to eat one warm. Can’t be done.

Chewy, moist, delicious. No kidding.

Enjoy!

My kitchen helper. That's his intent look, following the macaroon from my plate to my mouth.

And no, I did not give him one. He got a puppy treat instead.

This month my Creative Cookie Exchange group is making meringues, or indeed any cookie that calls for whipped egg whites! Many thanks to Felice from All That's Left Are The Crumbs for handling the behind-the-scenes work this month. Check out all the lovely meringue-ish cookies we've baked for you! Yeah, okay, so mine are the only ones not named Meringue. I'm okay with that.

• Chewy Almond Macaroons by Food Lust People Love
• Cocoa Meringues by Flours and Frosting
• Creamsicle Meringue Melting Moments by All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Espresso Meringue Cookies by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Fudgy Meringue Cookies by Oven Delights
• Sunny Side Up Meringues by Cream and Butter Blog

Creative Cookie Exchange is hosted by Laura of The Spiced Life. We get together once a month to bake cookies with a common theme or ingredient so Creative Cookie Exchange is a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts at The Spiced Life. We post the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

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