3 Desserts in One

You can make one large Macaroon brown recipe below and or you can make 3 different recipes.  Sal and I made 3 different desserts Sunday, keeping his brother Saylor and my mom in mind in doing so.  Saylor has to have gluten free so we made the brownie mix with my chocolate crinkle cookie recipe (with soy flour) and made cookies for Saylor.  My mom loves coconut so we made her macaroons.  With ½ the cookie dough we made the brownie bottoms.  Since we only made 12 brownies, we had left over coconut filling so we made faux Almond Joy candy for mom.  I’ll begin with my cookie recipe which is real close to a brownie recipe.  I have shared this before, but I’ll save you looking it up or you may use a box brownie mix and skip this entirely.

Chocolate Crinkle Recipe

This is Saylor's favorite cookie and we make them quite often.  You would never know that they are gluten and dairy free.  

½ cup vegetable oil

4 tablespoons cocoa powder

2 cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

2 cups flour (for Saylor we use soy flour)

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup powdered sugar

Mix oil, chocolate, granulated sugar and vanilla. Stir in eggs. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Cover; refrigerate at least 1 hours.

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease cookie sheet with cooking spray or use a silt pad.

Drop dough by teaspoonfuls into powdered sugar; roll around to coat and shape into balls. Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.  I use the palm of my hand and press them down a little.

Bake 12 minutes or until almost no imprint remains when touched lightly in center. Immediately remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks.  Do not over cook.  They will be like moist brownies inside. 

We used half this dough and made the coconut brownies first and still had enough left over to make 16 large cookies for Saylor.

Chocolate Almond Macaroon Brownies

This is so extremely easy and makes an outstanding dessert for coconut lovers. 

1 box of family size chocolate fudge brownie mix or my dough above

1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

1 (14 oz.) bag coconut

2 Tbs. heavy cream

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate but you may use milk chocolate)

1/4 cup almonds (or nuts of your choice)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line regular sized cupcake pan with paper liners.

Make brownies according to package directions or as directed above in the cookie recipe.  Put the batter only half way up the liners. Because it is quite thick, we used a little water on our hands to pat it down to the bottoms of the liners.

Bake in preheated oven for 12 minutes. While they are baking, mix the coconut, sweetened condensed milk, cream and vanilla together.

Remove brownies from oven.  Take a spoon and push down the centers of the brownie.  Spoon in a large teaspoon of some of the sweetened coconut mix.

Place back in oven and continue to bake an additional 14 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow them to cool completely. 

Top with the almonds.

Melt your chocolate chips in a double boiler and put in a small baggie.  Cut the tip off of the baggie and drizzle on the chocolate. 

If you choose to make these into bite sized, make sure you cut the baking time in half and watch them closely.

Faux Almond Joy Macaroons

½ of your coconut filling

Or if you just want to make the macaroons:

1 packages sweetened coconut (7 ounces each)

½ can sweetened condensed milk

1 tablespoon heavy cream

½ teaspoons vanilla

½  package of chocolate chips

½  bag of almonds (whole or slivered)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.  Mix all ingredients together. Spoon out dough with a small ice cream scoop or spoon. Put on parchment lined cookie sheet or silt pad. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

Melt a package chocolate chips in a double boiler (I used semi-sweet but you can use milk chocolate).  I used an entire bag and used half for these bars and ½ for the brownies.  I put it in baggies and drizzled it on both after I had topped with slivered almonds and they had cooled.

Making a mess in the kitchen and 3 desserts was a lot of fun with Sal.  I hope you enjoy as much as we did.  Be happy and may God bless you and yours.