Part I: Date Nut Macaroons

My first cookie blog is unfortunately, or luckily, depending on how you look at it, date nut macaroons.  I would never in a million years have willingly made these.   As a general rule I skip over any recipe with the word date in it. I associate them with prunes. Neither taste bad to me, but both conjure up imagines of well, being eaten for a specific purpose, if you know what I'm getting at.  And I am not even sure dates perform the same miracle as prunes.

As the work week came to an end and I was getting the ingredients together I tried to have positive thoughts about the dates.  I conjured up the Persia of yesteryear in my mind, to give them more of an exotic feel. At the store they still looked pretty gnarly as I was plucking them out of the bulk bin, but once I got them home and into one of the pretty glass bowls my sister gave me for my birthday their looks improved immensely.

The cookies themselves were easy enough to make.  After putting on some music; this cookie's signature album being The Rolling Stones "Beggars Banquet" (I just finished reading Keith Richards' autobiography and while I'm glad the guy is no longer a drug hoover, the story did get a lot less interesting once he cleaned up). I chop the dates, and mix them together with chopped pecans, coconut flakes, some vanilla extract, and to glue it all together sweetened condensed milk.  Which, I did not realize, tasted so good.  After I poured in the amount the recipe called for I took a few sips right from the can, to restore my constitution. Yum!

The recipe called for me to grease and flour the cookie sheets but I took a tip from my friend Molly and used parchment paper instead, which worked wonderfully. She gave me that tip a few months back and its worked like a charm every time I've tried it. I've reused the same parchment paper multiple times to save money and be just a tad more eco-friendly, without any bad results

Okay, so now I'm at the point where I'm putting this minimalist mixture of five ingredients on the cookie sheets, and the condensed milk starts to leak all over. It doesn't go too far, because its so thick, but I'm wondering if I did something wrong, missed something crucial in the recipe? Nope, doesn't look like it.  So I go ahead and put them in the oven and see what happens.

They come out like date nut macaroon castles, with sweetened condensed milk moats.  Some of them look decent, but most of them have weirdly shaped moats surrounding them, that have been toasted brown by the oven.

It doesn't ruin their taste however, and as a matter of fact I find myself peeling off the condensed milk moats and just eating those, leaving the rest of the macaroons for the friends who joined me for the evening after I finished my Friday night baking.  Yes. Friday night baking. That is how cool I am! If I want to make all the recipes in this book before I retire I need to make some sacrifices to my social life. Not that I would be doing anything else if I wasn't baking, but I'm not sure how ready I am to admit that to myself just yet.

Verdict: I wouldn't make them again, but I just might drink the rest of that
sweetened condensed milk!

Dowdy dates made sexy by glass bowl

Pre-mixed, not premixed

All mixed up and nowhere to go

Why did they leak-they look terrible!

One of the better looking macaroons

Stef assures me they taste better then they look-and she's got that big smile on he face so maybe she's not lying

On Saturday I made the Domino sugar cookies without (gasp!) Domino brand sugar, and the Double Lemon Delights, but I'll save those for other posts as my hands are getting cramped from all the typing.