Pumpkin Poser Macaroons

Happy Halloween, my lovelies!

What are you dressing up as this year?

Due to circumstances, mostly work and school related, I don’t get a chance to wear a costume and go out to party this Halloween.

The closest I got to being spooky was wearing my fancy cat ears to work on Saturday night and having a coworker draw a triangle nose and sloppy whiskers on my face with red and black whiteboard markers.

I think that’s one step above the last minute cut-two-holes-out-of-a-sheet-and-be-a-ghost costume… or one step below, depending on how ghetto it is to draw on your face with whiteboard marker.

Yeah, I got some stares. I got some compliments, too. Win-win?

Anyways, this year’s Halloween-themed treats are a little less gruesome than last year’s — no blood splatter, no bones — just cute, little pumpkin poser macaroons.

These super sweet morsels are a trick and a treat!

With just a bit of orange dye and some weird green banana-shaped candy, I made coconut and orange flavoured macaroons that look like chocolate-dipped pumpkins.

If you’ve got a bit more time than I had, then a super crafty and creative person could even pipe chocolatey eyes and toothy grins on them.

Oh, and orange coconut macaroons are gluten-free, too! Boo!

Pumpkin Poser Macaroons

*recipe by Christine

Ingredients

Orange Coconut Macaroon Cookies

• 2 & 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut, shredded/flaked
• 1 & 1/4 cups white sugar
• 4 large eggs whites
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon corn syrup or honey
• 1 & 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• zest of 1 large orange

For Decorating

• 10 + drops of orange food coloring, to dye coconut
• 1/2 cup bitter-sweet chocolate, melted, for dipping cookies
• green candy bits, for making pumpkin “stems”

Directions

First, dye the coconut — do this shake n’ bake style!

Simply put the coconut in a large plastic bag and add a bit of the food colouring — shake, shake, shake the bag o’ coconut to distribute the colour evenly, working any lumps of dye into the mix.

Stop adding food colouring and shaking when you have the desired shade of orange, keeping in mind that the color will brighten and even out considerably when the coconut is cooked.

To make the orange coconut macaroons, first melt the butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Once melted, turn the heat up to medium and add all the other ingredients to the pot.

Cook, stirring constantly, until the coconut mixture starts to steam a little and the sugar starts to scorch on the bottom of the saucepan.

Remove the coconut mixture from the heat and cool to room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Roll the cooled coconut mixture into balls (I made ones a little smaller than golf balls) and place close together on the prepared baking sheet. Use a chop stick or toothpick to hollow out a tiny hole at the top of each rolled macaroon ball.

Bake for 25 ~ 30 minutes, or until the macaroons have puffed up and very lightly browned on the sides.

Cool to room temperature before sticking candy stems in the top of the macaroons and dipping the bottoms in melted chocolate (set the chocolate by placing the post-dipped macaroons in the fridge for 10 minutes).

Enjoy your pumpkin poser macaroons! Get sugar high! Happy Halloween!