Despite it being monumental false economy, not least because the same people who make the butter make the cream, I found myself purchasing a full litre of cream the other day in order to hand-churn my own butter in order to feel some semblance of control over the avaricious and extortionate pricing; and let’s not even think about eggs. This recipe for very easy chocolate-cherry macaroons sidesteps both ingredients, indeed, it sidesteps most ingredients altogether — and before I lose you, you can easily lose the cherries.

The framework of this recipe is not at all my invention — I first read about it in my teens in the almost tersely succinct pages of Aunt Daisy, that early to mid-century radio fixture. It’s something of a culinary leap of faith — comprised only of sweetened condensed milk and thread coconut. The latter obviously provides little more than bulk, but the condensed milk caramelises and lightly solidifies in the oven — just enough to firmly hold the coconut together. With that in mind, these are not to be confused with macarons, which are infinitely more delicate, uniform, and difficult. Macaroons, double the O, are sturdy, artless and bawdy — and so easy to make.

On an utter, unscientific yet instinct-motivated whim, I tried adding baking powder to the mixture to see what would happen. As I suspected, it helped immensely, adding a little lightness and lift to the macaroons, making them more self-assured in structure. It does mean that this is no longer a two-ingredient recipe, a concept lost entirely once I add the cherries and chocolate, but it’s still admirably minimal. The cherries themselves — which, I reiterate, you can ignore, but supposing you don’t want to — are the glace kind, ribald in their artifice and yet weirdly compelling, bright splashes of lipstick in the snowfall of coconut. The almost acetone fruity intensity of the sugar-pickled cherries, nudged along by a splash of almond essense, is stunning against the mellow, nutty earnestness of the coconut, each thread softly solid below your teeth, soaked in the sticky condensed milk, somehow holding itself together — as are we all.

Of all the recipes that I claim to be easy or simple or no-fuss, this is so simple that it almost doesn’t exist — you stir the small number of ingredients together, drop spoonfuls half-assedly onto a baking sheet, briefly bake, and then drizzle with chocolate as messily as you please. You’ll see I’ve re-used the trick from my Absolutely Nothing Chocolate Cake, making the most of a minute quantity of chocolate. That being said, if you want to use more you could also consider dipping the flattened bases of these macaroons in chocolate, they do suit that extra pair of pants.

Cherries and chocolate are legendary dance partners, with that aforementioned fruitiness in the cherries echoing the pit-bitter, fruity notes in the chocolate. Not too bitter, mind — I go for milk chocolate here, but you do what you want, this can withstand a much harsher dark chocolate. Despite that, these are shockingly not-too-sweet — the coconut somehow filters out the tooth-clenching qualities of the condensed milk.

So, these are, to recap — beyond easy and versatile, they taste incredible, use neither eggs nor butter in the recipe, and indeed, can use as few as three ingredients. In lieu of churning my own butter — which I still haven’t found time to do yet, though the night is young-ish (by which I mean, it’s 2am) if you’re after more coconut-forward recipes, I recommend this coconut oat chilli crisp, these coconut chilli tofu noodles, and Nigella Lawson’s rather more involved but truly excellent coconut macaroons, if you’ve got eggs and therefore egg whites on hand.

And if I may, a reminder that you can sign up here to hear irregular and unobtrusive updates and details about my forthcoming 2025 debut novel, Hoods Landing.

Very easy chocolate-cherry macaroons

The title is no exaggeration — there are hardly any ingredients (this is true egg-free and butter-free baking) and yet they taste complex, textural — stunning. Leave out the cherries if they’re not your scene but just know they come to life against the calmer, creamier coconut and slightly bitter chocolate. Recipe by myself, but adapted from an old, old, Aunt Daisy recipe.

• 250g shredded coconut — also known as thread coconut, make sure it’s this kind
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 x 395g tin sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 teaspoon almond essence (optional)
• 50g red glace cherries (optional)
• 100g milk chocolate (you could easily use less)

1: Set your oven to 180C/350F, and line a flat baking sheet with two pieces of baking paper, one on top of the other — this will help prevent the bases of the macaroons from burning.

2: Tip the 250g coconut into a large mixing bowl, and stir through the 3/4 teaspoon of baking powder. Doing it in this order makes it much easier to disperse the baking powder.

3: Tip in the sweetened condensed milk, using a spatula to scrape out every last bit from the tin. Carefully stir the ingredients together — for a few seconds it will look like there’s nowhere near enough condensed milk to cover it all, but it will suddenly and quickly spring together.

4: At this point, if you’re making plain macaroons, jump to the next step. For the chocolate-cherry option, stir in the 1/2 teaspoon of almond essence, then roughly chop your 50g glace cherries — I actually individually quarter them, but don’t feel you need to go to such lengths. Fold the chopped cherries into the sticky coconut mixture.

5: Now, take your baking sheet lined with two pieces of baking paper, and heap dessertspoonfuls of the coconut mixture onto it with about an inch space between. I find it does help to do a little shaping into a heaped circle with your hands, and there’s just no getting round how sticky it is, but it is the quickest and most effective way. If this is unconscionable, pat it into shape with a spoon. By “heaped circle”, consult the photos to see what I mean — these don’t spread very far, and the texture and hold-together-ability suits a little vertical heft. It’s worth noting here that the cherry-studded mixture is a tiny bit looser than the plain version and might need a little more prodding.

6: Bake for 11 minutes, then let cool completely. Melt your 100g milk chocolate (I daringly do it directly in a non-stick pan but there are safer ways to do it, such as microwaving in a glass bowl for short intervals). Dip a teaspoon into the chocolate and use it to drizzle chocolate back and forth across the macaroons, you can be quite haphazard here — think Jackson Pollock, as Nigella would say.

7: Allow to cool completely — in the fridge if you can, otherwise the chocolate will take what feels like absolutely forever to set — and then store in an airtight container in the fridge.

Makes around 20 macaroons.

Note: I haven’t tried this with vegan coconut milk, will update and let you know if I do. 

music lately:

About Three Dreams by Shudder to Think, it’s so scrawly and grubby and shambolic, like licking rust off sheet metal and finding it quite delicious.

The Gun Song/Ballad of Czolgosz from the 1990 original Off-Broadway cast recording of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, here performed by Terrence Mann, Victor Garber, Jonathan Hadary, Debra Monk and Patrick Cassidy. I got to see an exceptional local production of this confrontational musical recently at the Dolphin Theatre. It’s not the most out-of-context-friendly score, and for some reason these two tracks are run together on the original cast recording but the unsettlingly perky cumulative style of the latter song (which begins around 4:28 mins in) has been zipping repeatedly round my head ever since.

Take Me Home by the Spice Girls. Their B-sides are a cornucopia and I love when they leaned into r’n’b and sounded marginally more grown up — the moody production on this is like raindrops on a taxi window, the chorus is so soothing, and the spoken-word interlude is, of course, mildly inexplicable. I found this on a cassingle of Say You’ll Be There at a record fair recently and it felt like a true artefact and meeting of medium and message.

PS: As we enjoy our food we can’t forget those going violently without it. Though the people of Gaza are existing under barbaric cruelty with aid continually blocked, NZ-based humanitarian org ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal continues to work to deliver water sourced and treated from within Gaza so give it if you’ve got it.