Lemon Macaroons Five-Ingredient Recipe by Maya Corrigan

I hope everyone is well and staying safe! Like many people, I'm in stay-at-home mode and baking more than usual. Macaroons are one of the easiest treats I like to bake--only five ingredients and no rolling pin needed. This recipe calls for whole eggs and produces golden nuggets with a twist of lemon, a little less sweet than most macaroons.

Ingredients

2 eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of grated lemon zest

1 7-ounce bag of shredded sweetened coconut

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Beat the eggs in a bowl. Add sugar slowly while stirring. Mix in the vanilla and lemon zest. Fold the coconut into the mixture. Break apart any large lumps. The mixture should look moist and glossy.

Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper for easy cleanup or use nonstick cookie sheets. Drop heaping teaspoons of the mixture onto the sheet, spacing them an inch and a half apart. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to15 minutes or until the edges and some coconut shreds turn light brown. The center of each macaroon should still be soft. 

Slide the parchment onto racks. Remove the cookies when they’re cool and start eating. 

Like most cookies, you can freeze these between layers of wax paper and take one or two out of the freezer for a quick snack.

Yield: 30-36 cookies

This recipe appeared in the first Five-Ingredient Mystery, By Cook or by Crook. My sleuth Val follows a hunch, visits an elderly woman, and comes away with an important clue and a recipe for these golden macaroons.

There are now six Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring a café manager and her live-wire grandfather, who solve murders in a historic town near the Chesapeake Bay. Each book has five suspects, five clues, and five-ingredient recipes. Visit my website for book news, more five-ingredient recipes, mystery trivia, and a free culinary mystery story.

Five-Ingredients Mysteries: most recent at top left and first one at bottom right

All books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and IndieBound.

Do have a favorite easy-to-make treat?