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Makes
thirty-six 1 1/2-inch cookies
Author Notes
Adapted from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-You-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich —Alice Medrich
Ingredients
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3/4 cup
(105 grams) whole almonds, with or without skins
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1
small lemon, preferably unsprayed or organic
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2
large egg whites
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1 cup
(200 grams) sugar
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1 teaspoon
ground garam masala, pumpkin pie spice, or ground cinnamon
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1 1/3 cups
(160 grams) lightly packed, finely to medium-finely shredded carrot
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1 1/3 cups
(65 grams) unsweetened dried shredded coconut
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1/4 teaspoon
salt
Directions
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Preheat the oven to 325° F. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
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In a food processor, pulse the almonds to an uneven meal ranging in texture from very fine (mostly) to finely chopped. Set aside.
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Grate half of the zest of the lemon into a medium stainless-steel bowl. Add the egg whites and whisk with a fork until frothy. Stir in the sugar, ground spice, carrot, coconut, and almonds. Stir to moisten all of the ingredients. Set aside for 10 minutes to dissolve the sugar and hydrate the coconut.
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Set the bowl directly in a wide skillet of barely simmering water and stir the mixture with a Silicone spatula, sweeping the bottom of the bowl often to prevent the egg whites from cooking, until the mixture is very hot to the touch and any liquid on the bottom of the bowl has thickened slightly and turned from translucent to opaque, 5 to 7 minutes.
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Drop heaping teaspoons 1 inch apart on parchment-lined cookie sheets. If you like, form tall beehive-shaped cookies with your fingers.
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Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back about halfway through the baking time, until the tips of the carrot shreds begin to color and the bottoms of the cookies look deep golden brown when you turn a corner of the parchment over (without removing the cookie) and look underneath. Set the pans on racks (or just slide the liners from the pans onto the racks). Let the cookies cool completely before storing.
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To remove the cookies from the parchment, hold one cookie at a time while gently peeling the parchment away from it. Cookies keep for 3 to 4 days, loosely covered to prevent sogginess, rather than airtight. Do not freeze.
My career was sparked by a single bite of a chocolate truffle, made by my Paris landlady in 1972. I returned home to open this country’s first chocolate bakery and dessert shop, Cocolat, and I am often “blamed” for introducing chocolate truffles to America. Today I am the James Beard Foundation and IACP award-winning author of ten cookbooks, teach a chocolate dessert class on Craftsy.com, and work with some of the world’s best chocolate companies. In 2018, I won the IACP Award for Best Food-Focused Column (this one!).
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