Scottish Macaroon (original) (raw)

There are a lot of things on my 'Must Bake Before I Die' list. Most likely because it grows daily. But anyways, macroon has long since been on it as have macarons (which are completely different despite the similarity in spelling) as has tablet--which I keep being told is notoriously difficult to make, but I have a sugar thermometre, surely while armed with that I can't go so terribly wrong! Alas that is for another day.

Anyhoo, one of my work colleagues asked me if I could make macaroon. Her actual phrase was 'can you make that shit?' and yes, yes I can. Make that shit. It's ridiculously easy and really doesn't take that much time to make aside from letting it set. And it's delicious.

I don't know if you knew this, but mashed potato is the secret to easy fondant. I was actually quite amused at how surprised some of my work colleagues were at the fact there is mashed potato in macaroon. Mashed potato, in sweet things? You must be off your trolley!

Or scottish. One of the two.

It starts off life as potato, icing sugar and vanilla essence (completely optional, I just added it for a bit of flavour.)

And then you keep adding icing sugar...

And keep adding icing sugar until you no longer have mashed potato and icing soup.

The put it on a clean, icing sugared surface...

Then cut it into bits (try to limit how much you handle it though) and put it on baking trays lined with greaseproof paper). Alternatively do what I am going to do next time and put icing sugar on your greeseproofed baking tray and whap the whole lot of mixture right on the baking tray and pat it all out until it's about half an inch thick.

You can come back to these squares and cut them into more manageable sizes.

Little round bitesize bits from the leftover bits

Freeze the icing and potato mixture for at least an hour (give it more if you wish, it was about an hour and a half I gave them). Then get ready to decorate*

Mmm toasty coconut.

Dunk your macaroons in melted chocolate and then in toasted coconut et voila.

*It is advisable not to do what I did and run out of both chocolate and coconut. I ended up improvising with dark chocolate and chopped nuts. They were still good *nods*

Mmm sweet macarooney goodness...

This recipe is largely based on a recipe from madestuff.co.uk I say largely because nothing is set in stone, but here is the link if you'd like Traditional Scottish Macaroon

Also, I suck with imperial measurments. I like knowing how many grams of things I have in stuff or I get very confused. So, this is swapped a bit for metric.

Ingredients

120g of cooled mashed potato (you want this to be it's cooked measurement, so cook a couple of potatoes, then measure the weight out once they are cool).
500-700g Icing Sugar (loose measurement, keep more on hand.)
150g dessicated coconut
300g milk chocolate
1/2 tspn vanilla essence (optional)

Other Stuff

Greaseproof paper
A big baking tray
A pinch of patience

Method

1. Boil your potatoes until soft (remember to peel them ;)) Mash the potato and leave in a bowl to cool.
2. Start adding icing sugar 100g at a time, it'll be really soupy to start with but that's okay. Keep adding the icing sugar in 100g bursts until the mixture becomes a icing-y dough (this is why you might need more than 700g of icing)
3. Roll some of your doughy tatties into short fat sausages,placing them on your baking tray. Try not to handle them too much as they'll get sticky fast! (You can also do what I did and use a knife doused in icing sugar to cut them into squares/rectangles)
4. Find some room in your freezer and put the baking tray in. Leave the macaroon for at least an hour!
5. Near the end of your waiting time, toast your coconut on a baking tray at about 130C (a low temperature anyways) until it is a light goldeny brown. (You can also do half toasted, half not, but I toasted all of mine because I didn't buy enough, twat that I am). Melt your chocolate in a microwavable bowl in the microwave or over a boiling pot on the hob if you perfer.
6. Take your macaroon out of the freezer and set your macaroon, chocolate and coconut in a line next to one another. (Now's the time to chop your macaroon into smaller segments if you did what I did) Then, take a bit of macaroon, dip in the chocolate, then roll in the coconut and then place the newly covered macaroon on another greeseproofed baking tray. Repeat for all bits of macaroon. Try not too handle the macaroon too much as it will start to melt quite quickly.
7. Stick in the fridge overnight to set. Stick them in a box to take up less space. Feed them to people.

It is worth noting that these things get better with age (as the moisture gets all sooked up) and after about a week they are the best thing ever.

I'm going to leave you with a conversation that I had with David from Admin when I was up doing the frozen order because sometimes my work amazes me.

David: Hey...are you the one who made the macaroon?
Me: Yep.
David: It was good! How did you get it so minty?
Me: *looking very confused indeed* Minty? There isn't any mint anywhere near it. Maybe because it's cold?
David: ... I think I had chewing gum before I had a bit. It might have been that.
Me: *trying very hard to keep a straight face* Mhmm.