Peach Macaroon

Last night, Sergio and I were privileged to have good friends from Belfast coming over to the house for dinner, who we've never cooked for before.  The challenge for us, is that Harry and Angelique are both vegetarian, so we planned out a vegetarian feast, largely inspired by my new favourite website, www.gojee.com  - it wasn't a question where the dessert recipe would come from however, as I consulted back to Chrissie's books.  Our starter was thai inspired courgette fritters, followed by camembert-topped tofu and sweet potato feta salad.  We wanted something fairly light after what was a fairly starchy meal, so the recipe for peach macaroons seemed like an obvious choice.  Here's the recipe from Chrissie's book:


8 halved peaches
1 egg white
Almond essence
2oz coconut
1oz caster sugar


Place peaches, hollow side up on foil
Whisk egg whites stiffly
Add sugar, coconut and essence
Fill peach centres with this and grill for 5 mins
*Serve with cream


This was super easy to create, the hardest part in fact was getting the peaches halved without being squished to bits.  Had they been more ripe then it would have been easier.  

American sweetened coconut

The mix took only a few minutes to prepare, and I was surprised that only one egg white was required, but this absolutely sufficed for the 12 half (6 whole) peaches that we used.  I didn't have any almond essence so substituted with ground almond.  It is also worth noting for Brit-American clarity that I used American sweetened coconut rather than the usual UK dessicated coconut.  I prefer the taste and texture of this coconut, it is more coarsely grated and ironically to be appears less sweet than dessicated and more akin to fresh coconut, sure either would work.

Peaches ready for the grill

The peaches were grilled only for a few minutes - I had added some brown sugar on top of each for colour, but frankly they didn't need it.  We finished the peaches with some creme fraiche leftover from a meal earlier in the weekend and it complemented them very well, cream, ice cream etc would also be good. 


A very quick, easy, and not a particularly unhealthy dessert.  Highly recommended!