Macaroon Kisses

I've been trying to ease into this whole 'Baking' thing a little more. I still don't like it, and baked goods still don't like me, but I'm s-l-o-w-l-y starting to get a teeny bit more comfortable with baking.

I saw this floating around on Pinterest awhile back and pinned it to my Dessert board...where it sat. And sat. I was looking for a semi-easy dessert to make last week when this caught my eye, all lonely, sitting at the bottom of it's board...forgotten. Looked easy enough, so I decided to give it a go.

Not bad! It mixes up real quick, and I love recipes that have you roll the dough in your hands, instead of plopping it down on a baking sheet with a spoon. I feel I have more control when I can physically mold each cookie to be the exact size I want.

Now, for some reason, no matter how long I baked these, my coconut didn't get all nice and browned  (I went about 4-5 minutes over baking time trying to achieve the golden-brown flakes...didn't happen). Not sure if that's just the way it's supposed to be, or if I did something wrong (though I can't imagine what...I followed the directions to the letter), but it didn't affect the taste at all.

The overall verdict was success! Jesse and I really liked them. Heath, well, Heath doesn't really like coconut, so I wasn't expecting much excitement out of him. For someone who doesn't like coconut though, he still managed to make 5 of them disappear!

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'Macaroon Kisses'

Source: Adapted from Rook No 17

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon table salt

2/3 cups butter, softened

6 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 egg yolks

1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon juice from a fresh orange

10 cups sweetened flaked coconut, divided in to 6 cup and 4 cup portions

1 bag Hershey Kisses (48 pieces)

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, sift flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

2. Beat butter, cream cheese and sugar in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, vanilla and orange juice and beat till smooth.

3. In 1 cup increments, mix flour in to the butter mixture. Add the 6 cups flaked coconut and beat to combine.

4. Refrigerate dough for 1 hour. While dough is chilling, remove wrappers from the Kisses.

5. Heat oven to 350. One at a time, scoop dough into 1.5" balls (about the size of a large walnut). Roll dough between your palms, then roll in the bowl of remaining coconut (4 cups).  Arrange on an ungreased baking sheet at least one inch apart (cookies will spread slightly).  A standard cookie sheet should accommodate a dozen cookies at a time.  Bake 12-14 minutes, until the cookies puff and are very lightly browned.

6. Remove from oven. Immediately press one Kiss into each cookie.  Return pan to oven and bake for an additional minute.

7. Remove pan from oven and cool on a rack for 10 minutes. With a thin spatula, gently move cookies on to a rack to finish cooling.

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