There are fancy French macarons and there are coconut macaroons. This recipe is for the latter. It's similar to the tried and true macaroon recipe made with condensed milk, but enhanced with caramel sauce, chocolate chips and pecans.
Salted Caramel Macaroon Origin
The original version is from the 2012 Pillsbury Bake-Off, but I changed it up a bit by using a scoop to make them larger, dipping them in chocolate, and using salted caramel flavored baking chips. The caramel flavored chips add a little something, but you can make these without the special chips as well.
You can throw the chips into the cookies, or melt them and brush them over the bottom.
Medium Size Cookie Scoop
By the way, if you don't own a cookie scoop, I highly recommend the Oxo medium size scoop. I am only slightly exaggerating when I say I regret all the years of my life not having one of these! Now I did own cookie scoops, but they didn't function as well and they kept breaking. This one makes beautiful scoops, and if it does break I will immediately buy another one. The capacity is about 3 tablespoons, so if you use a scoop for these cookies you'll get 48 instead of 60.
Recipe
Salted Caramel Macaroons
Ingredients
- 1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 12.25 oz jar caramel topping
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 14 oz bags flaked coconut
- ¾ cup toasted chopped pecans
- ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips or caramel flavored chips
- Sea salt for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Line 2 large cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- In large bowl, stir together condensed milk, caramel topping, salt, and vanilla extract.
- Add flour and stir until blended, then stir in coconut, pecans and chips until well mixed.
- Drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls (or use a medium size cookie scoop) and arrange cookies 1 inch apart (2 if making larger cookies) on cookie sheets.
- Lightly sprinkle tops with some sea salt
- Bake 15 to 25 minutes (20 worked for the large cookies) or until golden brown. Transfer to cooling racks and let cool completely.
- Put about 1 cup of chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Heat on high, stirring at 30 second intervals, until chocolate is melted. Dip bottoms of cookies in melted chocolate and set on a parchment lined tray. Put in the refrigerator to set chocolate. Alternatively, you can use the caramel flavored chips. For the caramel chips you'll need to use a slightly lower setting on the microwave (50% power works) since they have more sugar and can scorch easily.
Anna says
Just be careful because according to Baker's Coconut, 2 tablespoons weighs 15 grams which means that 16 tablespoons (or 1 cup) would be 120 grams.
http://www.kraftrecipes.com/products/bakers-sweetened-angle-flake-co-29.aspx
Sonya says
Neva, I use this chart all the time if you're interested: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart.html
They say that 1 cup of Coconut, sweetened (flakes) weighs 3 ounces (85 grams)
Anna says
The conversions are so confusing because different kinds of coconut have different weights, and even the same kinds of coconut have different weights per cup depending on how much you pack it into the cup. That's why I provided the weight and said "flaked". I think shredded coconut has a different weight per cup. Also, flaked coconut is generally sweetened, so for this recipe you need flaked, sweetened coconut and the gram amount would be 784 grams. I could tell you that's about 6 1/2 cups, but that might throw you off if you are using something other than flaked coconut.
You could probably Google around and get how many cups of coconut are in a 14 oz bag of sweetened. I'm guessing it's a little less than 3 1/2, but again -- depends on how you mash it in the cup.
Neva says
Can you tell me how many cups of coconut. Our bags of coconut are no longer marked in oz, but in grams. I do not do the conversions very well, as each time I try, it does not work out.
Thanks
d says
I love those cookie scoops too. They last forever. Your link went to the medium size which is listed at 1.5 T and it says their large size is 3 T. Which did you use for these cookies?
d says
I love coconut macaroons and these look like an amazing version! I haven't seen the caramel flavored chips here yet, but I'll look for them.
Sonya says
Oh wow!!! I'm not a huge coconut macaroon fan, but these look AMAZING!
Anna says
Sue, we loved them! The caramel chips were good, but you can always just use the chocolate chips.
Sue says
These look incredibly good. I haven't tried those chips but I'll keep a look out for them.